Dumpshock
by KathainBowen
Summary: Tony Stark's mind and world are slowly unraveling around him. It was happening right under his nose. Human trials and torture, secret experiments and corporate espionage, all with Stark Industries at its heart.
1. Prologue

**DUMPSHOCK - PROLOGUE**

"Pepper... Pepper, please," Tony Stark begged now, his voice cracking as his body trembled uncontrollably.

The woman shook her head tersely, cool and collected, like a true personal assistant should in times of great PR crisis, distancing herself from any emotional attachment with a cool disdain. "Mr. Stark, I highly recommend that you both quickly and quietly kiss your control over Stark Industries goodbye and check yourself into rehab."

Tony shook his head fiercely, feeling tears rolling down his cheeks. "No... Pepper, please, you've got to believe me."

"I don't have to believe anything, Mr. Stark, except that you have a serious problem," the woman replied curtly and almost matter-of-factly as she skillfully averted uttering the truth, that her employer had become nothing more than a washed out drug addict. She folded her arms across her chest, looking down her nose at the pathetic creature before her, aloof as a pagan goddess. "It's not in my job description to believe anything."

Tony reached out and grabbed her pale wrist, squeezing hard enough to feel her bones and muscles strain under the pressure of his hold, to feel her stillness constrast so sharply against the shivering and shaking of his own muscles. "Please, Pepper. I can't..."

It wasn't in Anthony Edward Stark to beg. In fact, Pepper had never seen the inventor beg in his entire life. Even in the video she'd secured from the ghost drive of Tony in captivity, so badly injured and held at gun point, he never begged. Not for his life, and not for death. No. Tony had always been a problem solver, searching a way to avoid anything as demeaning and costly as begging. However, now, ashen and shivering, his body ravaged by whatever poisons he'd been putting into himself and however frequently, Tony Stark desperately begged for her help. He plead with each and every fiber of his being, right down to his eyes, wide and fearful.

It almost worked on Pepper Potts, but she knew Tony Stark too well. His personal assistant had seen him blow through fast cars, hot women, and hard liquor like they were nothing. Over his years of debauchery, Tony had grown quite accustomed to saying what women wanted to hear in oder to get in their pants. However, his assistant had seen him in action with her own two eyes, and she wouldn't let Tony con her like all of his one night stands that she'd escorted from the house on so many occasions.

In truth, Pepper Potts had already danced this number before, many times. Stark wasn't the first celebrity or business man Pepper Potts had worked for as a personal assistant, nor had he been the first to succumb to a vice of some form. The woman had tried so very hard to help those previous employers of hers before they self-destructed completely. With his glaringly obvious symptoms of PTSD including insisting on parading around in a prototype exosuit to fight crime like something out of a cheap and poorly written comic, it hardly surprised Pepper that the millionaire industrialist would turn to narcotics and alcohol. If anything, it bothered Pepper that she hadn't figured it out sooner, if only to have more time to prep for the upcoming media onslaught that would no doubt hit as soon as anyone knew the great Tony Stark, weapons manufacturer, sex symbol, and the fabled "Ironman," was in rehab. Damage control, that was how Tony always worded it. At this short of notice, though, there could be no recovering from this PR disaster for Tony. If she was a smart PA, Pepper would jump ship and fast to avoid tarnishing her own reputation.

Pepper shook her head, thinking of the few kind and dear moments he'd given her, the tiny little things he'd done for her. "No." He blinked at the simple word, as if stunned, his mouth hanging open but unable to form words; the woman just looked down, suddenly gravely interested in the tile beneath her feet. "Tony, I can't just sit here and watch you do this to yourself."

"Pepper." Her name was barely audible as it spilt from his lips.

"I have sat back and said nothing this whole that you've been running around as Ironman out there night after night, wondering if, one of these days, you're not going to come back. I can't keep doing this, Tony." The woman gave another shake of her head, firmly this time, much more resolved. "No. Not this time." She put her hand to his cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin and the fever, knowing she only had one bargaining chip against Tony Stark and all his millions. "I'm going to walk out of here, and, if you don't come with me to go get yourself the professional help you really need, don't expect me to come back."

She stood abruptly, taking just enough of a step back to be out of his reach; Tony gave one small effort to move for her but slumped back against the wall. "I can't... I just..." his lips pursed together in a childish pout, quivering slightly. "She did something to me, Pepper...but..." His voice caught at the word at the admission. "But it's my fault."

But his personal assistant didn't seem to notice his words; instead, Pepper took another step back, swallowing as she did. "I'm going, Tony."

"Don't leave me," he whimpered in a pathetic voice.

Pepper backed away a bit further, her steps a little less sure. "Tony, I'm serious."

"Pepper..."

The woman felt a tear forming at her cheeks and a lump rising in her throat. Tony looked so utterly pathetic, covered in a sweat sheen, his eyes febrile and glassy. He barely seemed able to even look at her. Whether he lacked the energy or the nerve to do so, Pepper couldn't tell. Tony was coming apart at the seams, and he was just too stupid, too arrogant to know it. Potts knew she couldn't just sit back and watch him throw his life away. Not this way, not this time.

She was at the door to the steps leading up to the main part of the house from the shop. The door and walls felt cool, smooth, and glassy to the touch, but Pepper knew it wasn't really glass. Another one of the great Tony Stark's inventions, a super strong, clear material that served as both a physical barrier and a touch screen computer.

"This is your last chance," the woman breathed, taking another hesitant step back. "I mean it, Tony."

The inventor looked to her, a profound sorrow in his eyes. It was something she'd never seen in him before, something she could never have expected from Stark. However, the man refused to move. He just sat there, with his back to his work desk, staring at her blankly, as if looking for some answer in his brain as to how to fix all his problems with some simple gadget or invention. Tony's jaw hung open in a surprised 'o,' but suddenly unable to form any coherent words or pleas, let alone summon up his practically trademarked humor. His lip moved, but only ever so slightly, as though there were things he wanted to say but couldn't.

Finally, he closed his eyes slowly and uttered her name again in a barely audible whisper. "Pepper..."

His personal assistant took one, last hard look at the man before her, knowing that the image would be permanently fixed in her brain as one, crystalline moment of human suffering. The shop stood in shambles, parts of various machines and tools scattered this way and that. One of the ancient robots lay on its side, struggling to right its self. Wires tangled on the floor where they'd been strewn. And, in the middle of all that, slumped against his work desk. In what was the worst part of it all, silent tears streamed down Tony's cheeks. He was, perhaps, the saddest sight Pepper had ever laid eyes on, a far cry from the super hero he thought he'd become since Afghanistan.

Pepper let out a heavy, lamenting sigh, rubbing her forearms before turning and curling her hand about the door handle. "Good-bye, Tony."

**XXXX**

Author's Note: Yeah... I know... seriously OOC, amiright? Just wait. I promise. Just wait. I'm a few chapters ahead of you, and, I assure you, it's a strange, wild ride but one worth it, IMHO.


	2. The Nearly Departed

**DUMPSHOCK - THE NEARLY DEPARTED**

_A heavy darkness had fallen over him, but there were voices, penetrating the void. They spoke in angry tones, shouting and barking in words that he didn't understand in a language he didn't recognize. For all he knew, it could have been English, but, to his ears, it came through only as a distant droning. It was hard to focus through the pain in him, the aching that coursed through each and every muscle of his body, making it feel less of a tool and more of a prison to him._

_He tried to drag his eyelids open, to see, but it took so much strength, too much energy. He couldn't focus, seeing only blinding, white light overhead and shadows all around. He knew there were people, but they didn't seem to notice he'd come to. He could hear them, smell them along with the axle grease, oil, and, oh god, the blood, metallic and coppery on the air. He let his eyes drift downwards, to the gaping hole in his chest, to the hands pressing down onto the wound and the scarlet seeping between those fingers. A shift of those alien and probing fingers sent white hot agony through his body, a fresh reminder of their presence within him. To his shame, he couldn't bite back the groan of pain that escaped his lips._

_A face leaned in to his, one he didn't recognize. Older, male, with wire rim glasses, his mind dully recognized and filed away. He tried to let his eyes droop shut again, to just submit to the symphony of suffering racing through him and either pass out again or just die already. Bloody, sticky hands pried his right eye open again, flashing a piercing light over him. The hands fell away from his face, and his eyes fell shut, plunging him into a merciful darkness compared to the bright lights. Couldn't they just leave him alone to die in peace?_

_There was more arguing over him, bitter and sharp but not as loud as before. He tried to open his eyes again, desperate to see what was happening around him, but he just couldn't find the strength to do it. The angry men around him grew silent again, speaking in hushed voices but still in a language his mind refused to recognize. Maybe it wasn't foreign? For all his foggy, swimming mind could tell, the words could very well have been perfect English, concise and clear. However, judging by the sudden softness to their words, they must have thought him unconscious again between the stillness of his body, the shallow nature to each agonizing breath he took, and his closed eyes. He savored in the moment, enjoying being left alone to die._

_But, then, those hands were back, probing and prodding into the wounds on his chest, drawing forth a tortured howl from deep within his lungs. He felt violated to have someone else's hands in his chest, right there, right next to his own heart. Something frigid, metallic and heavy pressed into his chest, forcing its self into his flesh and just shoving the air from his lungs. It twisted inside of him with a sickening, meaty crunch._

_A surge of adrenaline coursed through his veins with an electric charge from the sensation of being stabbed with the blunt thing, like a tsunami washing over him. His eyes snapped open. His own hands clawed at his chest to free himself of the crushing pressure there, but the men just swatted his hands away. His arms sprang out, swinging in balled fists, trying to strike out at someone, anyone, but his eyes were still too bleary to see anything. Hands shoved him down with a sudden force, slamming his back into a cold, hard table. He tried to fight, to struggle against them and get away, but they were stronger than he was. They held him down by his wrists with a heaviness that could not be moved. _

_Something pressed down on his nose and mouth with an acrid tang. The world and his torment drifted away, along with any strength and fight he had in him. Sleep took him, but he did not dream. _

xxxx

"NO!"

Tony Stark jumped awake, rocketing up in his bed. He gasped for air, his hands reaching for his chest to rip away those awful, dirty fingers from within his chest but finding nothing. Nothing except for that constant reminder of what had happened to him, heavy and dull where the thing had been set into own flesh. The arc reactor felt cool to the touch, but it hummed almost imperceptibly against his sternum. The man just sat there, trembling and panting, holding his eyes shut tightly to both shut out the memory of the nightmare and regain control of his body. His fingers, however, lingered over the arc reactor.

"Are you in need of assistance, sir?" A voice, cool, calm and slightly British called in the darkness.

Tony flinched again, but remembered instantly now. The inventor glanced about in the dark, letting his eyes adjust to take in his surroundings. The pale, ice blue light of the arc reactor sunk into his ribcage gave a faint glow, just enough to cut through the darkness about him. He was in bed, nestled between 400 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets in an empty, almost barren room. Massive windows spread across the wall, and Tony could just barely see the white crests of waves rolling towards the beach below. A small blue ring reflected in the windows, along with the pale, almost ghostly image of Tony himself, drenching in sweat and still breathing heavily. Malibu. Not in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan. Home. Warm. Safe.

"Sir?" the voice- which Tony now consciously recognized as his AI butler, Jarvis- pressed again without emotion before noting, "Your heart rate and respiration are both elevated but decreasing."

Tony shook his head slowly, and sighed heavily, "I'm fine."

However, as Stark swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stumbled out of the room to the bar, he secretly knew he wasn't fine. Not since before the cave had the man been "fine." Not since those last few moments of joking and trivial banter in the Humvee had Tony Stark been "fine." He hardly slept anymore, devoting most of his waking hours to his inventions. When the man did sleep, it was for but a few short hours at a time, always waking up covered in sweat, his heart racing, his mind still trapped in those freezing mountain caves. The scientist in him dully recognized the symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, while the womanizer in him lamented at the thought of never being able to have another lady in bed with him until the man could regain control of his own mind. After all, what could be more embarrassing to a millionaire playboy than the fact that he had nightmares like a little boy? No. Tony Stark couldn't have a woman seeing him that way, not even Pepper Potts, the only actual female friend he had. Tony knew he was far from fine.

He'd been that way since Colonel James Rhodes had found him in the desert. His long time friend and colleague had hugged him in the hot sand, saying some sort stupid joke about the "Funvee" comment Stark made upon parting before the ill-fated caravan left. Tony only vaguely remembered through his dehydrated haze being helped onto a helicopter and out of it later, to an infirmary somewhere where scores of doctors and nursed flitted about him, before drifting off again into the deep, urgent sleep of a newborn child. While those memories were fuzzy at best, Tony recalled one thing quite clearly; waking in the middle of the night, screaming at the top of his lungs until Rhodes was at his side, shushing him and pressing Stark down by his shoulders. The feeling of being held down drove Stark past the edge, beyond all reason and reach, shrieking in horror and swinging his fists until a quick doctor and a round of Haldol stopped him from fighting. Tony remembered his eternal shame as his body went limp and as he just lay there, whimpering to himself, unable to move from the sedation, unable to sleep from the constant terror, and just too spaced to make any sense of it all. But Tony Stark could conquer anything, and he made himself hide it well, throwing all his energy and concentration into the "Ironman" projects.

Stark trudged across the living room the bar, leaning over the modern furniture and reaching for a familiar bottle. Jameson Gold Reserve. Tony poured himself a tall glass of it, pausing to look at the bottle and smirk to himself mildly. "Sine Metu." Without fear. Tony sniffed at the thought, replaced the bottle gingerly behind the counter for a moment before picking it back up again, and taking both bottle and glass down with him down the stairs to the shop. There was more work to be done on the suit, new calibrations to be made on the flight systems, and some minor adjustments to be considered for his hotrod, anything to keep from sleeping and dreaming. And, when it got to the point that he couldn't keep himself awake any longer, well, that was where the Jameson Gold came in.

xxxx

"Good morning, Miss Potts."

Pepper Potts smiled to herself mildly. There was something strangely comforting to the voice of artificial intelligence that kept the Stark household running perfectly smoothly as booth as home and as laboratory. Tony had been smart enough to program Jarvis with a pleasantly British but not overly stuffy voice, and to give the artificial intelligence almost normal speech patterns. Tony made made Jarvis human enough to be easy to converse with, without being so human as to give the impression of a Peeping Tom. Leave it to Tony to think of every angle.

Even though Potts knew Jarvis was fake, she couldn't stop herself from returning the greeting. "Good morning, Jarvis." She set her bag down, glanced about, and sighed heavily. "I take it Mr. Stark is in the shop?"

"You would be correct, Miss Potts."

"I assume he's been in there all night?" the woman inquired softly.

Jarvis replied quite matter-of-factly. "Mr. Stark arose at 3:17 AM and retired to the shop at that time."

Potts shook her head solemnly, practically seeing Stark's precarious schedule evaporating before her eyes again like it did every morning. Tony had never been very good at being on time to anything in his life. After the whole "Ironman" debacle, Pepper had been hoping to keep him as on track as possible. While Rhodes and some fellow by the name of Nick Fury- who apparently outranked the Colonel without even stating his rank- had been quite insistent that Tony avoid the public eye, there were countless meetings and business matters to attend to in the wake of Tony's abrupt announcement. While Rhodes, Potts, and Fury all trusted Stark, it seemed the shareholders had other opinions on things and had spent the last two weeks furiously trying to oust the millionaire industrialist. It had been trying on the inventor, Potts knew, but it was all a necessary evil borne of his impulsive and irrational decision to make such a claim at a press conference.

The woman took a moment to smooth her blouse and straighten her skirt, pulling it down as far as it could go, despite its already demure length at just above her knee. Potts gathered her Blackberry, the dossiers for today's corporate trials, and her wits before descending the stairs to the shop. The room seemed silent and still beyond the plate glass, with all things in their proper place, and Pepper sighed in relief. Any morning without an explosion and the robotic fire brigade in action was a good morning in her opinion. Pepper unlocked the door and let it slide open before stepping gingerly into the shop.

"Mr. Stark?" she called into the stillness of the great space, her voice echoing slightly against the metal and concrete. There came no answer, and, so, Pepper called again. "Mr. Stark? I know you're in here."

Again, there came no response from the inventor, just a yawning silence in the shop. Pepper huffed in annoyance before striding across the floor, letting her high heels clip aggressively against the tile with sharp snaps. It didn't take long to find Tony, but Potts made each and every step as loud as possible. However, Tony didn't seem to hear it. He just lie still, slumped over his desk, his eyes shut in a deep slumber. Judging by the rings under his eyes and the engine parts from his hotrod that he'd slept over, it could have just been from exhaustion, plain and simple. However, judging from the mostly empty bottle of bourbon clutched close to his chest with one arm, it was from intoxication. Pepper swore under her breath; this was not going to be a good morning.

The woman folded her arms sternly across her chest. "Mr. Stark." The man made a small sound, perhaps a whimper, before stilling again. "Mr. Stark." She tapped her foot, eliciting a noise of annoyance from the drunk as he cracked open a cautious eye. "So good to see you among the living, Mr. Stark."

Tony slammed his eye shut, trying to block out the bright light before groaning, "Miss Potts..."

The woman let out another sigh, tired of playing this game with her employer. "Jarvis, shades." The room instantly dimmed as the glass went almost opaque, allowing Tony the darkness his hangover so desperately needed. "Are we quite through with this childish display, Mr. Stark, or should we go ahead and hand over controlling interest in Stark Industries to the Board of Directors before signing you into rehab?"

"I'm awake, Miss Potts," Tony growled bitterly, not budging a muscle from his place still hunched over whatever he'd been working on the night before.

She slapped the papers down on the desk beside him. "Today's agenda. Three major meetings between the Board of Directors in reference again to your mental stability as controlling shareholder, Nicholas Aurelius from Ares Industries in reference to a business agreement, and Nick Fury from S.H.I.E.L.D. in reference to something he- as always- wouldn't disclose on the phone despite our security. Might I suggest an immediate hot shower, followed by Tylenol, orange juice and some eggs?" Tony raised at eyebrow, finally forcing himself to turn his head slightly to actually look her in the eye, but Pepper only took that as a momentary distraction to wrench the almost depleted bottle of Jameson form his hold. "You'll need to ditch the hangover before we get back on schedule." Tony baulked to argue, reaching vainly for the bottle, but Pepper merely spun about on her heel to leave, chiding, "And without the hair of the dog that bit you."

Tony smirked to himself a tired half-smile before letting his eyelids droop shut again. "You know you're cute when you're a bitch."

xxxx

Three hours later, even after a rather tiring and brutal meeting with the Board of Directors, and Tony Stark still looked much better as he emerged from the conference room than he had in the morning when Potts found him. He wore darkly shaded glasses, even indoors, and Pepper knew it was to block out the light. Drink enough hard liquor, and anyone would be a little photosensitive the next day. However, Tony Stark had been hungover so many times before that he'd turned it into a fine performance art, letting no one in on his little secrets. Tony was a master performer, too. Sometimes, when Potts let her guard down, she, too, forgot that he was a little hungover still.

She stood and followed him down the hall, almost impressed by the strong, sure way he carried himself, until the doors to his office shut behind him and Tony plopped into the leather chair behind his desk. It was a rarity that Tony ever went to the office, let alone spent enough time there to sit at his desk. In truth, the millionaire probably only purchased the thing and furnished the office to make Obadiah Stane happy. He took off his glasses, letting them rest on the table as the man rubbed his eyes.

"Long night?" Potts asked softly, noticing his small wince at the sound of her voice.

Tony nodded. "Lots of work to do."

"I'm sure." She poured him another glass of orange juice from the small office fridge- a beverage that had probably only ever seen Tony Stark's mouth accompanied by a liberal dose of vodka- and produced another pair of Tylenol for him. "Being a superhero and all."

Tony gratefully accepted the medication and took it greedily. "Thanks, Pepper." He shot a lazy, suggestive smirk in her direction. "What would I ever do without you?"

Potts ignored the look on his face and the obvious, leering intent. "What indeed?"

Tony already knew the answer to that question, even if Pepper wasn't currently aware of it. The man couldn't keep a schedule to save his life, and the only thing that kept his business side afloat was Pepper's constant reminders and prodding. Without her, Tony didn't think he could really survive as head of Stark Industries. Oh, he could run the company, that was for damned sure, but without Pepper keeping him on track when it came to social niceties and corporate decorum, Tony knew he would have been ousted _long _before Afghanistan.

But, judging from the smug look of satisfaction on his assistance's face, she already knew it. He looked like hell, absolute hell. Dark bags hung under his eyes, and his pale skin never seemed to regain the healthy and tanned glow he'd had before his time in captivity. Tony had put on more muscle mass from being his alter-ego, that was for certain, but that didn't mean he looked any healthier or happier for it. His face still seemed thinned and drawn since the ordeal, too. Pepper shook her head at him slowly, almost maternally.

"You don't sleep much, do you?" she inquired flatly.

"Too much work to do," Tony replied with an air of disinterest as he leaned his head against the chair and rested the back of his wrist on his head to block the bright sunlight. "You know that." He sighed. "The Mark III suit still isn't quite 100 again."

"Shades," She called to the computer system in the office to opaque the windows, gave him a sly smile over her shoulder to Tony as she slowly walked to the door. "You've got another half hour at least before your next meeting, plenty of time to pull yourself back together."

"I owe you one," he called as she stepped from the office.

"You owe me more than one."

xxxx

_Something was wrong. Drastically, painfully wrong. A heavy weight pressed against his lungs, squeezing the air out of them. He couldn't breath, not at all. The crushing weight wouldn't let him. His lungs burnt with a raw and pure fire. Worse, small shards of pain ripped through him, racing through his veins like tiny daggers. Tony tried to speak, to call out to someone, anyone, but his body refused to respond, allowing only pathetic whimpers to escape. His throat ached dully, blocked by something. He coughed and gagged out of instinct, trying desperately to clear his through, but finding nothing would loose whatever had come lodged there._

_People shouted around him distantly, but he was too tired to call out for help or even lift his head. Tony went unnoticed._

_His hands reached up, probing and feeling. They found the weight there, something rough and round, just there on this chest. Two long things came from it. Snakes! His hands struggled to explore the object while Tony's mind fought to make some sense of it, to put a name to whatever had been forcing the air from him. It hummed against him, in a tiny, barely noticeable but sickening sensation. _

_Tony's mind raced and reeled with possibilities, none of them pleasant ones. His long, dirty fingers clawed at the round thing, trying desperately to free himself of the weight, but it refused to budge. His fingernails found purchase around the lip of it, digging and prying. It tore at his chest and something warm seeped out from beneath it. Tony clenched his teeth, trying to hold back his own screams of pain as lights flash in his eyes. The man pushed past the agony; anything to get the pressure off his chest so he could breathe again. The metallic thing shifted again, spilling more warmth across Tony's fingers, and the inventor could no longer hold back his shrieks. His hands fell to his sides again, limp and cold. Tony's vision blurred, but he couldn't tell if it were from whatever had been in his chest or from- dare he admit to himself- tears._

_The voices returned to him, angry again. There were hands at his chest, pushing at the metal weight upon him. Tony's body jerked suddenly as his mind came to a brief clarity again. He struggled, reaching to the side to drag himself away like a coward. Something hard collided with his face, sending sparks dancing across his vision. He rolled onto his back, dazed, as other hands pressed down upon his shoulders, holding him down. Tony wriggled and squirmed like a fish, but either he was too weak or they were too strong. The hands refused to let him up. _

_Tony was trapped. Dying and trapped._

xxxx

"Tony!"

He jumped awake, shaking and panting, his eyes looking to her, wide and almost terrified in a way. Pepper flushed and pulled her hand away, stepping back. She'd come into the office to remind Tony about his meeting with Ares Industries, perhaps only twenty minutes after leaving him, only to find her employer locked in some nightmare. He'd been breathing hard, moaning something in his sleep. Sweat had beaded up on his forehead in the short time she'd left him there. Pepper couldn't shake the instinct to wake him from whatever dark dreams held her boss.

Tony blinked and subconsciously tapped the face plate on the arc reactor for reassurance, clearing his mind and focusing on the frightened woman before him. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Pepper replied softly, almost concerned sounding before putting back on her professional business air, setting a dossier down on the table. "You should have told me. We could have rescheduled your appointment with Aurelius." Tony made a soft sound of disdain, but the woman just tutted him. "As it is, Mr. Aurelius has already arrived and is waiting just outside."

Tony stood, letting his assistant straighten his tie, before nodding to the file she'd placed on his desk. "Can you give me the sixty second summary?"

"Obadiah had a business arrangement with Ares Industries to maintain an experiment of theirs while you were..." Pepper caught at the word; Tony noted she never liked to talk about what happened to him in Afghanistan, using polite euphemisms in place of the reality of the situation. "... away." The woman finally settled on that word. "Ares is a small arms, robotics, and aerospace technologies developer." Pepper smirked as she helped Tony back into his jacket, smoothing it down his muscular back. "Your little press stunt when you first got back kind of destroyed the business relationship."

"Ah." Tony made a small hiss of inhalation, thinking back to that day and grinning slightly. "Yeah..." He shook his head, laughing to himself at the thought of all those reporters sitting on the floor like story time in kindergarten. "Good times."

"For you." She gave his tie one last tug, like a wife, almost. "But Ares has gotten a bit impatient with Stark Industries."

"I would imagine," Tony commented flatly. "Send him in."

Pepper went to the door to let the man in. Nicholas Aurelius stood and strode in. He looked warm and friendly, like Obadiah had at one point. He was an older fellow, with a long beard and white hair, portly. Where it not for the business suit, and the fact that Tony distantly recalled him from some meeting with General Motors back when Aurelius had been a board member with them, Tony might have mistaken the man for Santa Clause in the off season. No wonder they called him "Old Nick."

"Ah, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," Tony greeted, putting on the famous Stark charm and perfectly concealing his hangover, holding out his hand to shake Aurelius's. "Won't you sit down?" The man obliged to sit in the chair across the glass and metal desk while Tony poured himself a glass of scotch. "Can if get you something to drink?"

"No, thank-you," Aurelius politely replied with a nonchalant wave of his hand. "I didn't come for social niceties and small talk. I came about the contract I signed with Stark Industries."

Tony shrugged to himself and took his seat again. "So, I'd love to help you out, but I was a little out of the country when you made your dealings with Stane." He recalled the cover story he was supposed to be using as opposed to the truth that he was currently serving a wonderfully long sentence in a maximum security prison for a sordid list of crimes and offenses. "I'll have to talk to him before we make any business decisions."

"Respectfully, Mr. Stark, cut the bullshit," the man suddenly blurted out in an uniquely brusque but professional manner, catching Tony a little off guard by the severity of it. "I know Mr. Stane is currently..." Aurelius gave knowing look and a small, odd gesture with his hand. "Predisposed."

"He's taking vacation time," Tony asserted, keeping his cool and bridging his hands, parroting the line he'd been fed by S.H.I.E.L.D.

Aurelius smirked coyly. "I was under the impression that this would be an extended leave of his."

Stark nodded slowly, taking in Aurelius for a moment, and wondering just exactly what information had been leaked despite S.H.I.E.L.D.'s assurance that everything was under control. "It may be." Tony took a sip of his scotch, both savoring the taste and the implied composure it gave him before deciding to dive right into the problem. "What is this in reference to, specifically."

"Ares Industries lent a major project to Stark Industries for joint experimentation shortly before Mr. Stane's rather abrupt sabbatical," Aurelius explained simply. "Since Mr. Stane left, we have received neither additional information regarding the project nor the status of our own investment. Ares Industries requires, as per contract, either a status report or the return of our property."

Tony set the glass down on the table and sat upright. "I'll look into it."

Aurelius placed a carbon copy onto the desk, pushing it towards Stark and letting the other industrialist study it, smug in the knowledge that the inventor would find everything in proper legal order. "As you can see, it's clearly noted in the contract signed by both Mr. Stane and myself." Aurelius smiled slightly, confident in the clear upper hand he had over Tony as he pointed out Obadiah Stane's ornate signature. "Either Stark Industries complies or faces severe legal consequences."

"I've faced worse," Tony admitted with a half-hearted laugh. "Ever try to battle a paternity suit a week?"

"No, and I doubt I shall ever have the distinct displeasure." Aurelius seemed to enjoy toying with Tony. "You're in a very precarious position, Mr. Stark. I doubt very much your current problem with control of Stark Industries would be helped any by an impending lawsuit." Aurelius flashed a toothy grin before leaning in over the glass table. "Especially considering that, while so very few people believe your little press stunt yet are pushing for an injunction removing you from your board position due to obvious psychological problem, some people actually know the truth about your little project."

"And what project would that be?" Stark inquired, his eyebrow raised and his curiosity piqued.

Aurelius peered ever closer, his eyes holding a mischievous delight. "You call it the Mark III?" Tony drew in a sharp hiss through his teeth, but the other businessman just continued as though ignoring it. "How utterly bland, Mr. Stark. I would think someone with as grand of vision as you and as creative as you would come up with something a tab bit more imaginative." He chuckled heartily, an almost Viking bellow before going on, "I expect breaking the Blackbird's record was exhilarating, just exhilarating. And that alloy to avoid icing at such altitudes? An inspired choice." Aurelius settled back into his chair, obviously relishing in his advantage over Stark. "Although, I should think I could expect no less of you."

Tony frowned for a moment but refused to show his unnerve at this turn of events. "I wasn't expecting that." He nodded in concession. "You've done some extensive homework, Mr Aurelius."

"But of course, Mr. Stark. You can't survive in this modern business without doing at least some minor research," Aurelius admitted.

Stark paused in careful consideration. "What do you want?"

"Only unlimited access to the project and the maintained corporate security for its duration," Aurelius replied simply

Tony sighed; Aurelius had him by the proverbial balls and both men knew it. "I suppose I don't really have a choice, do I?"

The other man smirked again, like a wolf. "Not particularly. Not unless you want _all _of your dirty laundry aired out to the world." Aurelius gave a small chortle. "Especially some of your more unusual extracurricular activities."

Tony stood curtly. "Done."

"I hadn't wanted it to be this way, Mr. Stark," Aurelius lamented strangely as he rose to shake hands again with his fellow businessman. "I would have truly liked to have met you under more agreeable circumstances."

"You could have fooled me," Stark quipped. "Unless, of course, you consider blackmail agreeable."

The older man looked down, as if in a mild regret, or perhaps he was actually stung by the comment. "You have a gifted mind, Mr. Stark, a true prodigy. It would have been my great honor to have met your in more a social situation. However, time is crucial right now with this experiment, and it could not wait for this whole mess to be sorted out in court. You understand, I'm sure?"

"I'm certain." He strode out of the office, leaving Aurelius still sitting there and almost barreling into Pepper Potts. "Ah, Miss Potts, give this Mr. Aurelius unlimited security access and cancel all of my other appointments for the day."

"But S.H.I.E.L.D..."

Tony cut her off harshly before she could even argue otherwise, "Can wait."

**XXXX**

Author's Note: See, a bit more like the man we all know and love? Inventor. Millionaire. Workaholic. Possibly alcoholic, and incurable flirt. A little slow and a tad bland, but utterly necessary, I assure you. Ah, but how does Aurelius know so much about Ironman? That's for me to know and you to find out if you're patient enough!


	3. Damage Control

**DUMPSHOCK - DAMAGE CONTROL**

Pepper Potts did exactly as she was told, just like she always did. She cancelled all of Stark's appointments for the rest of the day, including managing to reschedule the appointment with S.H.I.E.L.D. It hadn't been easy, especially considering a "Nick Fury" would apparently be very pissed at the abrupt change. However, Pepper managed to juggle everything and to free up the rest of the day and night for Tony. It was easily done for Tony Stark, and they were quickly back at his Malibu mansion before she could even dream of changing his mind.

And, as she watched him trudge down the steps to the shop, a bottle of Cadenhead's Peated Single Malt in hand, Pepper couldn't help but worry about him. He'd been so professional and so business like since returning from Afghanistan, working to rebuild his control that had been slowly crumbling in the wake of the "Ironman" admission. He'd worked like a madman between the company and his own, private project, letting it consume all his time. Like always, Tony stubbornly refused to allow anyone any insight into his thoughts or emotions.

Pepper sighed and sat on the couch. "Jarvis?"

"Yes, Miss Potts?"

The woman bit her lip for a moment. "Jarvis, would you consider Mr. Stark to be... well?"

"His physical fitness is in peak condition," the artificial intelligence replied.

"That's not what I meant." Pepper rolled her eyes.

"Are you referring to psychological wellness?"

The woman nodded slowly, rubbing the tired muscles at the base of her neck. "Yes, Jarvis."

"Mr. Stark appears to be experiencing a mild form of insomnia, but my data files are sadly limited in regards to modern psychology," the computer admitted.

Potts nodded again. "Inform me if his condition changes."

"Of course, Miss Potts."

Then, she slowly descended the stairs behind Tony. His back was turned to her as he stood, grinding away at something, sparks flying over his shoulder. For a moment, she sat at the door, watching him where he couldn't hear her. The man had already shed his pressed business attire in favor of a black undershirt and work jeans, like shedding an entirely different side of his life away. There seemed an undo amount of tension in his shoulders and all the muscles of his back, but Tony kept working at whatever it was that apparently needed immediate and aggressive polishing and grinding.

Pepper drew in a breath and entered the shop, calling out over the noise. "I take it the meeting with Aurelius didn't go well?"

"No." Tony cut off the grinder and slammed it down on the work table.

His assistant winced as Tony picked up the bottle of whiskey and slammed it back, taking a few deep gulps and squinting his eyes shut as he did before setting it back down on the work desk with a jarring clank. It was bad enough that the man spent half the day nursing a hangover. Now he seemed bound and determined to repeat himself. Pepper didn't like it when he drank, not anymore. Before his captivity, intoxication turned Tony Stark into a flagrant playboy, fun seeking and loose; Tony drank to enjoy himself back then. Now, the inventor drank to the point of forgetting himself and everything around him. He downed stronger liquor each day, as if seeking some form of absolution in the bottom of the bottle. Pepper didn't like the obviously bad sign of potential alcoholism one bit, but the woman supposed that no one could predict how someone who had been through what Tony had been through those three long months.

"That bad?" she inquired.

The man made a gruff sound as he spun the vise and let loose what Pepper now recognized vaguely as a piece of the hot rod, turning it in his dirty hands to study it closer. "He's blackmailing me to get at some secret project that Obi was working on before his sojourn."

Pepper gave a small laugh. "And this is a problem compared to the dozens of women who try to blackmail you every week?"

"He knows all the specs of the Mark III."

The woman stilled, her face falling as she chewed on her lip thoughtfully. "Oh..." She looked down at her feet for a moment, composing herself. "Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"I can't do anything, Pepper. Obi screwed me pretty soundly on this one."

Pepper nodded slowly in concession before letting out a heavy sigh, knowing there was nothing more she could do really. "Alright." She looked to Tony, but he had already sunk himself back into working on parts of the hot rod engine. "Well...try not to stay up too late. I'll see you tomorrow, Mr. Stark."

He glanced over his shoulder at her, waggling an eyebrow suggestively at her. "Leaving so soon, Miss Potts?"

"Good night, Mr. Stark."

Pepper shook her head as she ascended the staircase, chuckling to herself under her breath. Tony Stark, the incurable playboy. She even thought that he'd still be chasing pretty, young women even as a senile old coot. He'd probably even spend the rest of his life flinging small compliments and flirting with her.

As she reached the top of the steps, Pepper noticed something strange in the windows overlooking the ocean. There seemed to be an odd reflection there. Pepper furrowed her brow and approached slowly, almost hesitantly. The reflection drew close and into slight focus, taking a hazy female shape. Pepper let out a sigh of relief to see it was just her own reflection, until the reflection winked saucily, waved at her jovially, and vanished instantly into nothingness.

Pepper trembled slightly, rubbing her arms. "Jarvis, is everything alright with the windows in the living room?"

"Is there something wrong, Miss Potts?"

The woman shook her head. "No. I just thought I saw something."

"There has been no security breach nor compromise of the data and programming of any of the visual panels," Jarvis announced quickly.

"Must have been my imagination," Pepper smiled to herself. "Good bye, Jarvis."

"Good bye, Miss Potts."

xxxx

_"You are doing better, my friend, much better."_

Friend?

_A voice spoke over him, caring and compassionate. His foggy, fevered brain struggled to focus in on it through the chills that ravaged his every muscle. It was strange, so very strange. The only voices he'd heard for so long were aggressive, barking in languages he couldn't understand. This one spoke in soft, soothing tones, and in English, no less. These hands were gentle for once upon his aching body as they checked his carotid pulse, pressing tendering against his throat._

_A low moan escaped his lips, alien and distant._

_"Are you awake?"_

_Tony tried to answer, honestly tried, but his parched throat refused to work. Something still stayed in the way, refusing to budge. He swallowed hard, his throat horribly dry and scratchy, but the man could barely breath, let alone force his adam's apple to move. Tony gave up and just lie there, unmoving, trying to will himself back to merciful unconsciousness. Sadly, his body and mind refused to yield. A few minutes passed in silence before the hands returned to his chest, poking and prodding. There was a sudden flash of agony in his chest, and Tony couldn't stop himself from rasping hoarsely from the pain._

Why can't I just die already? _The thought both horrified and confused Tony at the same time, but it had been his own._

_The hands jerked away from his flesh, and the voice spoke again, apologetically. "I'm sorry. Your wounds need tending." The stranger paused. "I don't have anything for the pain."_

_As the hands returned to him, Tony bit back a yelp of torment ripped from him. _

_The hands stilled but didn't move, and this new person's voice drew close to his ear to penetrate Tony's fading awareness, but softly whispering. "I know it hurts. I wish I could do something for that, but I have limited supplies." The stranger paused again, as if swallowing hard. "You can scream if you like."_

_But, before the sentence was even finished, the world of consciousness slipped relentlessly away, and Tony drifted back to merciful, comforting darkness. _

xxxx

"Mr. Stark?"

Tony surged awake with a start again. His arms flailed out for a moment, and the bottle of Irish whiskey dropped to the floor, shattering. He took the time to stop and breath easily, to force his racing heart to slow down to a relatively normal pace and regain composure. Tony glanced about. The house was dark and dim all around him, nighttime. He reassured himself that the voice belonged to his house, for however strange it sounded to acknowledge that fact.

Tony rubbed his bleary eyes. "Yes, Jarvis?"

"There has been an incident at Stark Industries."

The industrialist sighed heavily. "What now?"

"There has been an explosion in the SETEC research building."

Tony winced at the thought, recalling the last major incident at the Stark Industries laboratories. "What is the damage?"

A hundred images came to life on the windows overlooking the ocean, casting a pale glow across the room. There were news feeds here and there, marked by what channel they were on, as well as several video feeds from the security cameras about the Stark Industries complex. All showed one of the major research and development buildings going up in flames. Bright, crisp flames licked at the dark skies as choking, black smoked rolled into the heavens.

"No reported casualties as of yet. Reports of 5 cases of minor burns, and 8 cases of smoke inhalation, all currently being treated by the authorities. Structurally, the building has been seriously compromised and will not be salvageable if the fire is not contained shortly," Jarvis listed succinctly.

"Anything else I should be aware of?"

"This particular building was housing part of a joint project with Ares Industries signed off by Obadiah Stane during your absence," Jarvis added.

The inventor could almost laugh. "Great. Could things possibly get worse?"

"There have been scattered reports of gunshots, and the authorities are currently suspecting arson," the artificial intelligence informed him. "Officials are declining statements but are barring fire containment from entering the building until it can be secured from hostile forces."

Hostile forces. Not a good thing, not when these hostile forces had decided to invade one of the largest weapons manufacturers in the world. Stark Industries produced some of the wildest state of the arts firearms, explosives, and exotic weaponry out of any company in the industry. Tony had already faced this once in his life, the threat of terrorists stealing the very weapons he'd designed. The man hadn't submitted to the Ten Rings when they wanted his Jericho; he wouldn't just let someone waltz out of his own laboratories with destructive toys.

Tony shrugged his shoulders, shaking his head in a solemn gesture. "Guess it's high time I made an appearance." He gazed up to no one in general before announcing, "Jarvis, ready the Mark III suit."

"An excellent idea, sir."

xxxx

It didn't feel right. While Tony had flown several times over the town and city, even over his own industrial complex and research and development facilities since his battle with Obadiah, this time felt different somehow. He hadn't ever been expecting to run a mission at his own business again, not since Obadiah. A small pit formed in his heart as the city raced beneath him. Tony tried to ignore the sinking suspicion that there was something terribly wrong with all this.

Just ahead of him, perhaps a few miles away still, Tony spied the smoke rolling off of one of the research buildings. It came up in huge, choking clouds, churning in the sky. Tony focused in on the building, and the smartlink in his helmet magnified the image. A series of statistics on the building appeared beside the image, noting its age and structural design, as well as the name of it. Stark Electronics Testing and Evaluation Center. SETEC. The building was located not far from the destroyed arc reactor, and much of what could be salvaged from that building had been moved to SETEC. Just like the news clips and surveillance feeds had shown, the entire SETEC building seemed engulfed in flames.

"Jarvis, detail all projects stationed in SETEC and any hazardous materials stored in any dangerous quantities," Tony ordered.

"Of course, sir."

Two lists flew up on the right side of his vision in light blue lettering. The first listed flammable and explosive materials in any great amounts. There were only a few items detailed there, nothing much to be terribly concerned about, except for a few tanks of liquid nitrogen for processor cooling. The things that concerned Tony were on the second list of projects. Mostly weapons technologies, including electronic imaging projects that had been inspired by the smartlink system he'd installed in both the Mark II and Mark III suits that allowed Tony to see without eye holes as well as track targets, aim, and fly. Everything seemed utterly in order, all projects that the inventor recognized. All but one at the bottom of the list. RESONANCE. That particular project, Tony had no clue about.

"Jarvis, I need all project specs for Resonance," Tony ordered.

The artificial intelligence would have sounded regretful if the inventor had programmed him to mimic human emotions. "I cannot locate any information in reference to that particular project."

Tony huffed in annoyance. Of course there wouldn't be any information regarding that particular project, he was certain. Stane had been quite careful to guard certain projects from Tony before he'd arranged the hit on his own protege. Even after Afghanistan, when Obadiah started worked on his Iron Monger suit, the man had cautiously hidden all signs of the project from Tony. This could only mean that whatever Resonance was, it couldn't be good.

"Location for Resonance?"

Jarvis replied instantly. "Sublevel 2 Section 31."

They were upon the SETEC building now. Unlike the Reactor House, as Tony like referring to that particular building, SETEC was an innocuous seeming piece of architecture. For a place where complex weapons electronics were designed and tested, SETEC seemed utterly bland and boring. Howard Stark had designed SETEC himself to look like nothing more than a common, beige office building with black, one way windows. It was all a part of the senior Stark's plan to make the company seem approachable as opposed to the great, big, scary weapons works that it could have been, allowing it to blend into the corporate landscape without much notice. Tony frowned slightly, watching his father's dreams of a weapons manufacturer seamlessly integrated into the American industrial landscape.

As he drew close, rifle retort pierced the night. Tony flew a tight circle over the building, studying the structural stability of the thing. Howard Stark, like his own son, had been a great genius. Unlike other, newer buildings to the Stark Industries main facilities designed to be cost effective as well as secure, Howard Stark had designed the SETEC building to be damn near indestructible, withstanding even the heat of this blaze. It would hold for a while longer, long enough to the inventor to get in and subdue whoever had invaded it with such force.

The Mark III suit had been able to handle the extreme cold of high altitude. While Tony had never tested the alloy's tolerance to fire damage, he'd designed it to take abuse of any kind. He couldn't be entirely certain how it would react.

"First time for everything," Tony said with a grimace.

He cut the engines, letting the suit drop from the sky like a stone with him in it. Tony crashed through the roof of the building with a terrible smash. He kept falling, though, plunging through one floor, and another, and another. The fire had damaged the building more than Tony had initially estimated, unable to handle both the fire and the crushing weight of the suit. When he finally stopped falling, landing on a solid ground, Tony glanced about wildly to assess the situation. He'd crashed down to sublevel 3, to the bottom floor of the SETEC building where, fortunately, for now, the fire and explosions that rumbled overhead hadn't reached. Overhead, flames licked through the air, casting their orange glow through the gaping hole in the ceiling and roof where more black smoke escaped.

"Jarvis, status report."

"Law enforcement officials are currently retreating to a distance of 50 meters from the SETEC building, requesting that all units currently inside the building exit immediately," the artificial intelligence responded succinctly.

There was more gunshots overhead in the upper floors.

"That doesn't sound like a retreat," Tony snarled.

"Indeed," the computer replied in his helmet with that artificial lack of emotion or surprise. "Radio transmissions suggest that at least one unit is currently engaging with the intruders." Jarvis paused, as though processing new information. "Sir, a kill order has just been issued."

Tony sighed; a kill order would make things more difficult if he accidentally ran into the police before these intruders. The other technology was unfinished and inconsequential at best, mostly related to the arc reactor, integrated recoil dampening systems including gas venting, and a primitive form of the smartlink system that Obadiah had put into the Iron Monger suit. No terrorist force or gang could make effective use of that technology just yet. However, the Resonance project could have been anything and in any state of completion. It was a chance, but Tony had learnt long ago to trust his own hunches.

"Jarvis, locate Resonance in relation to me."

A map immediately appeared on the right side of his vision, highlighting a small room on the sub floor above him. Tony flew up and landed neatly on the tile of the next floor over, hardly noticing the heat of the fire that burnt around him as he bolted down the hall. Fire reached for Tony in his suit, but it did not touch him. Jarvis helped, rotating the map and swinging it from side to side to reorient it as Tony turned corners. An explosion rocked the building about him, sending trembles through the legs of the exo-suit. Tony ignored it, driving on and running, his every step that should have thundered under him drowned out by the constant roar of the flames. Each door he passed called out a number, counting up slowly from 18.

However, before Tony could get to the end of the door, the world snapped to silence for a moment. Even the roar of the flames, a constant thing about him, stopped. The whole world froze for but the tiniest of milliseconds before a hard, jarring blast rocked through the SETEC complex accompanied by a deafening boom. If Tony hadn't been in the suit, he surely would have been knocked to the floor from the unexpected and tremendous fear. As it was, the inventor had a hard time keeping to his feet. But, then, he fell into a jumbled heap, the exo-suit heavier than before, his ears ringing from the blast.

It took a moment for the dust and smoke to clear about Tony before his mind could make any sense of what happened. An explosion had gone off a level or two above the man, sending debris cascading down to this particular sublevel. He grit his teeth, pushing a hand out onto the floor before him to force the Mark III suit to its feet. It took all the strength he had and diverting much energy to the arms, but Tony managed to drag himself from beneath the rubble pile.

The man looked upwards, letting the smartlink flash over what remained of the ceiling, both studying the damage himself and allowing Jarvis to analyze the visual evidence. He didn't have long, not long at all. This portion of the upper floor had been damaged too severely to hold for much longer; it would collapse soon now. Tony glanced to the door to the nearest lab. 25. The man was still a long way from 32, possibly long enough to get under a more stable portion of the building. Tony sprang into action, bolting down the long hall as fast as the suit could carry him, cursing himself for rushing into this without any semblance of a plan.

Finally, Tony came to an innocuous door in the hall marked simply SETEC 2B 32. At any other moment, he might not have suspected anything unusual about this particular door. It had the usual steel hatch, like so many of the other rooms for the testing of exotic weapons, so that the lab could be sealed off in the event of an emergency. There was also an electronic lock on the side of the door with a slot for inserting a keycard like all of the labs at Stark Industries. However, this door had no label, and there were two guards lying before it in a dark pool of their own blood, their weapons still drawn and cocked, like they'd never stood a chance.

Tony knelt before one of the men, gently turning him on his side to reveal a horrified and grotesque grimace frozen on the man's face; he knew he couldn't feel for a pulse through the metal gauntlets. "Jarvis?"

"Vital signs are negative for both, sir."

"Noted," Tony breathed, rising and turning to the door. "Resonance?"

"Indeed, sir," Jarvis answered.

Tony gave a curt nod before rearing back. No time to fumble with cracking the lock on the door. He threw a driving punch with his arm straight into the metal door. The steel groaned under the force but didn't break away entirely. Tony threw another punch, feeling the force race up his arm, ignoring it. The locks and the hinges gave way to superior force, sending the steel door dropping before him. The fire flared forward about the exo-suit and the inventor encased safely inside, fed by fresh oxygen from the lab for a moment, licking at the ceiling until sprinklers went off overhead, dousing much of the flames that crossing the threshold. Tony hardly noticed either.

The smartlink went wild as Tony's eyes scanned the laboratory before him. It was dark, very dark, especially compared to the hall behind him. The programming of the suit compensated for this, letting in more light and studying the surroundings in a sort of mild sonar to piece together the imagery. Everything in his vision became outlined in light blue to ensure visibility in the suit. The lab was filled with instruments and chemicals. Computers lined the wall, each affixed with wireless routers, but none of them functioning anymore between the heat and water.

It was like any other lab, it seemed, until he saw it. There, along the back of the wall, was a hospital gurney and iv stand. Several dead machines and monitors flanked the curious thing. The man's stomach turned instantly sour, his mind already racing down the limited possible explanations as per why a weapons manufacturer would be involved in a project that would require such supplies. Tony approached hesitantly, looking to the crumpled sheets and a spot of blood on the floor to the side of it. Tony switched to infrared for but a moment, spying a patch of ambient warmth on the bed in a vaguely human shape. Someone had been there, and not too terribly long ago if it still held heat despite the quickly chilling water falling from the ceiling.

The suit went dead suddenly. Even the holographic smartlink went dead across Tony's vision killed out, plunging the man into a profound and oppressive darkness. Tony drew in a deep breath, hearing it echo strangely in the cocoon of metal and electronics. The only other noise was the distant sound of water plinking across the metal of the Mark III suit. The inventor had never heard the suit so still and silent, almost roaring in his ears without the near constant hum of electricity. It plunged the inventor into a crushing darkness.

"Jarvis, reboot." But Jarvis didn't answer; Tony called again. "Jarvis?"

Again, there was no response, but, in the darkness, there came a small light. It grew and expanded until it seemed to take a form. It was a girl, glowing softly as though light radiated from deep within her. She sat on the edge of the bed, the outline of the thin mattress just visible from the light that emanated from her skin. Her long, black hair hung limply, hiding her face in shadows. She wore a royal blue skirt with puffy sleeves. Over that was a while sort of apron, covered in splatters of rich, red blood. A long, menacing blade, stained scarlet with blood, rested easily in her pale hand. Slowly, the girl stood and turned to face Stark, lifting her head. She stared at him with harsh, glaring eyes.

"I regret to inform you," she began coolly in an artificial voice, running her fingertips over the razor sharp blade edge and grinning madly from ear to ear like a haunting Cheshire cat, "That Jarvis is dead."

"Dead?" Stark blurted out, confused by the confession before grinning to himself just as wildly as she did and retorting, "I regret to inform you, but Jarvis was never really alive." The inventor tore the face plate from his suit, more than ready to face someone dumb enough to take on the incredible Ironman with nothing more than an overgrown chef's knife. "Jarvis is nothing more than zeroes and ones..."

The man blinked in frustration upon seeing that the girl wasn't really there amid the rubble of his own blown apart laboratory. She giggled haughtily in his ears. Tony spun around, but there was no one there. The girl existed only in the suit, as artificial and nonexistent as Jarvis. Tony drew his visor back down over his face, not surprised to see the girl still there but only in electronic form. Looking closer, he noted how dry and pristine she seemed despite the constant, steady stream of water from overhead. She bent over, laughing hysterically at the man, her hand over her lips. When the girl looked up, her eyes sparkled at his humiliation, her face streaked with blood from her pale hands in a grizzly image of childish barbary. The programmer had to be utter genius to come up with something as realistic and responsive as this girl, let alone invade the programming to the Mark III suit! All Tony had ever come up with for Jarvis in regards to a human interface was a voice. It sent awe through the man, as the inventor side of him recognized the effort and skill that had gone into creating the interactive image.

"Very nice," Tony commented in a low growl of both annoyance and mild jealousy as sweat poured down the back of his neck from the flaring heat. "Ready to show your face now?"

She stroked her chin wantonly with a scarlet stained finger. "I am showing it."

"Your real face."

"Why, whatever are you talking about?" the girl mocked him, plucking absently at the hem of her almost Victorian blue dress in a nervous gesture, flashing a toothy grin. "This _is _my real face."

"Cute," Tony snarled. "Just what I needed. Human inspired interface complete with sarcasm." He grit his teeth, instinctively sinking slightly down on the balls of his feet and drawing back with his right hand so he could react in a heartbeat to anything before demanding, "What do you want?"

"I want..." the ai girl shivered, the smile fading from her face. "I want... to be free."

A voice snapped behind him, "FREEZE!"

**XXXX**

Author's Note: Oh nos.


	4. Firefox

**DUMPSHOCK - FIREFOX**

"FREEZE!"

Judging by the authoritative voice that barked the word behind him, either a member of local law enforcement or Stark Industries corporate security stood behind him. A drink click met his ears of the cocking of a firearm of some form- a small caliber semi-automatic pistol he surmised- confirmed the sinking suspicion. It had only been a matter of time before they ran into the millionaire playing superhero, but, admittedly, Tony had been hoping that it would have taken far longer for them to find him, banking on the fire and the chaos of the intruders to distract all attention away from him.

"HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM! SLOWLY!"

Tony smirked to himself under the visor of the suit; it would have to be slowly. Without Jarvis powering the suit, the man would have to move all that metal by himself. Granted, the inventor had already thought about this potential pitfall after the Mark I suit proved too bulky and difficult to maneuver in without power, streamlining his prototype design to make it as light as possible. Once Tony sheered off as much weight as he could between the design and alloy choice, he'd spent much time in the gym, strength training to build up his muscles, just in case. That didn't mean that he'd had the chance to test just how heavy and ungainly the Mark III suit would be without power or Jarvis. After the battle on the roof with Obadiah, Tony had stripped himself of the ruined suit to reserve what little power remained in the Mark II arc reactor, so he wasn't entirely certain how quickly he'd be able to move in it. The man raised his metal encased arms slowly over his head, open, empty, and palms forward.

The electronic girl in his field of vision, however, stilled where she stood in the holographic realm. Her eyes were wide with horror, her mouth hanging open in a silent scream of fright. What little color had been in the program's face immediately drained out, leaving her somehow paler than before. She looked utterly terrified of something. What? He could only guess, but, somehow, that just confused and shocked Tony more. What could a computer program possibly have to fear out of physical, mortal people, especially an artificial intelligence that obviously could jump in and out of the suit without much trouble?

"THROW DOWN ANY WEAPONS AND KICK THEM AWAY!"

"Don't do it," the artificial girl sang with a hysterical giggle, as if right on the verge of a nervous breakdown, complete with tears. "You'll be sorry if you do."

Tony shrugged mildly, knowing that the small motion within the suit wouldn't be conveyed outside the metal without the subtly that came with electronic control. Even if he had wanted to, the man couldn't just throw down his weapons without stripping off the entire suit. All of the firearms and less conventional weapons were integrated into the metal frame about him.

"DO IT NOW!"

The voice ordered harshly over Tony's shoulder, causing even the artificial intelligence in his holographic vision to jump in fright. He felt something push into the shoulder of his suit, but it translated only to a mild shift in his body, not the jabbing usually associated with a pistol being dug into him. Tony felt his smirk grow. He'd already seen first hand how little damage bullets could possibly do to the exosuit. Nothing to worry about... except, of course, for the complete lack of control over primary weapons systems and flight control.

Well, there was one lingering fear that crept up in Tony's mind. The person behind him was likely on his payroll or a member of the police. There was a possibility, a slim one, that a bullet fired at the Mark III armor would ricochet into this interloper, injuring a person who was only doing their job. And the floors above them to the SETEC building likely couldn't hold for any longer as the fire raged on overhead. Tony let out an annoyed sigh at the thought of someone innocent needlessly dying because he did something utterly brainless.

Slowly, Tony reached up to the helmet of the suit; the artificial girl shook her head. "Don't do it!" The man ignored her warning, already lifting the suit as she cried out, "Don't say I didn't warn you!"

The scorched air hit him in a wave as Tony lifted the face plate to the helmet. Dully, he noted that the fire had grown worse in the hall over the course of a few seconds, and even the sprinkler system had stopped, perhaps damaged somewhere along the line or just out of water. The world seemed to waver about him in a terrible, beautiful distortion from the heat of the fire.

The inventor turned warily to show his face, holding his hands up in a non-threatening gesture of surrender. "It's just me, Tony Stark. I came to..."

Tony had been summoning up a pathetic fabrications as per why he of all people would be rushing into a multi-alarm fire at one of the lesser research and development laboratories to Stark Industries. However, upon seeing the person before him, any excuse Tony could have come up with evaporated instantly, leaving him trailing off. The stranger definitely wasn't a member of Stark Industries corporate security nor the local police. It was a tall, muscular person, masculine and well-trained judging by the shape and stance. This individual was clad entirely in dark black, even enshrouding much of their face and head in a dark wrap. The only visible part of the individual's face had been covered in dark goggles. There was no logo, no badge upon the person's stealth uniform, but several guns, knives and assorted weapons hung from the man, strapped with tightly buckling harnesses. The attire didn't fit security nor police.

Subconsciously, Tony's eyes fell to the firearm the man carried as the arms designer in him took over. A state of the art semi-automatic in a large caliber, complete with gas-vented recoil compensation. He recognize both the firearm and the corporate insignia on the side. The Saco Weapons Industries Panther, an updated version of the 951 Jericho, offering, as the manufacturer claimed, "more bang for your buck than ever before." A larger caliber, much more power, and a larger clip capacity, keeping the firearm trim and neat like its earlier counterpart. It had been designed with the intention of a personal sidearm for the C.I.A. But the Panther hadn't been slated for mass production and release for another six months _at least_. And this particular Panther had been heavily modified, it seemed. Nope. Definitely not corporate security nor police.

"You from S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Tony guessed hopefully.

"I DID NOT TELL YOU TO SPEAK!" The intruder shouted brusquely.

The inventor felt his grin returning. Not law enforcement. Not corporate security. And definitely not S.H.I.E.L.D. This meant that the stranger was perfectly fair game for Tony. The man moved in a fast blur, before this mercenary in black could even know what was happening. Tony slammed down the visor to protect his face, already moving on his mental notes of where the man was to rush forward. With the crushing force of a professional football player, Tony dropped his armored shoulder down and drove it into the intruder, slamming the man into the concrete wall behind him. It'd been difficult, certainly, to move the suit so quickly without power, but, to Tony's great satisfaction, the black clad man struck the wall with a meaty thump and crack that could be heard even through the suit.

"Sonovabitch," the intruder swore harshly, shoving back against Tony.

Without electronic control, the exosuit did actually yield to the force of the push; the fake girl in the helmet giggled deliriously, chirping, "I told you so." The artificial intelligence blinked oddly. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!"

The smartlink to the Mark III visor flashed to life again, bringing up a complete view of the world about Tony again, but under control of the female program. The invading artificial intelligence had every right to swear. Crumbling holes pocked ceiling overhead where the fire had grown hot enough to actually melt away at the flooring and ceiling. Bits of unidentifiable building material tumbled from overhead, littering the hallway in flaming chunks.

The man before Tony had almost instantly regrouped from the blow, no matter how jarring it had been. He had drawn the Panther again, aiming at Stark's head. The gun went off with a quick, loud, crack. The inventor dimly felt the bullet slamming into the helmet, deflected off of it, but he ignored the feeling. Instead, Tony slammed a balled fist forward to the man's head. The stealthy intruder ducked to his right, narrowly avoiding the blow as the punch smashed into the wall with a spray of concrete dust.

The stranger swung around with his Panther, firing as he did. This time, he aimed to the side of the impenetrable helm. Tony felt a dull ache in the side of his neck as the bullet slammed into the joint there, like a sound punch. This intruder proved to be a quick learner, finding one of the few, rare spots in the suit where Tony hadn't been able to completely armor as soundly as the rest of it. The slug couldn't penetrate, but it would leave a decent bruise later.

In retaliation, Tony snatched the nimble intruder, hoping to grab the darkly dressed man by the throat but finding purchase only on the man's arm. Stark swung him around and colliding into the wall. When the man struck, he rolled his weight to the side, somehow summoning the strength to turn his own momentum against Tony, twisting to throw the metal-suited man into the wall as well. Tony barely felt the collision when he hit.

A pang hit the inventor in his side as something surprisingly managed to pierce the tiniest of cracks in his armor. His gazed tipped down to where the man in black, this clearly well trained assassin, had managed to skim a knife in between the tiny joints to the armor, driving and twisting it until it found flesh. It caught him just under his lowest, right rib. An awful, sticky sensation hit Tony where his own blood seeped out in between the armor and his black body suit. The stab wound wasn't deep, but it went numb instantly. It felt warm, surprising Tony at how little actual pain there was at the sight of the trauma.

"A little help would be hot," Tony quipped in a tight snarl to the artificial intelligence in his sight.

The girl pressed a finger to her lips, a moment too late; the intruder had heard it, even through the suit of armor and over the roar of the fires overhead. "What?"

Tony flinched, suddenly wondering what exactly was going on around him, wincing as the black clad man tore the blade from under the armor, snapping it where the thing wedged between two metal plates. The intruder cocked his head to one side, as if listening to something distant, and sprang off the ground with a horrible, deadly grace and accuracy, striking Tony in the shoulders and tackling him. Both men went crashing to the ground. Tony's eyes went wide as he noticed that, overhead, the flames had ravaged and ruined the structural integrity of the building. The floor would collapse soon. A jagged crack ran just over where the two of them had landed. Tony hardly noticed the weight over him when there was something that bad going on overhead.

The intruder's long fingers pried at the helmet, ripping at the latches; the image of the girl floating in his vision ducked, covering her head with her hands and crying out, "No, no, no!"

Tony's fist moved before his mind could process it, slamming into the intruder's chest and knocking the man clean off of him. Unfortunately, two awful things occurred at the same, exact time. The man went flying, tearing the helmet off of Tony's head as he did. At the same exact second, the ceiling overhead collapsed as great, massive, burning sections of cement, piping, and support came crashing down towards them. Tony grit his teeth and rolled back away from there, just as tons of flooring and ceiling landed with crushing force where his head had just been. The ton of material narrowly missed the millionaire by a hair.

Unfortunately, the intruder and the helmet hadn't been as lucky as Tony. As the inventor regrouped, he immediately spotted, just beyond the flames, the shape of the man in black lying on the floor, unmoving. A gigantic rock of cement, tiled on one side, had fallen upon the intruder from his shoulders down. The man had been crushed, most likely killed instantly. Tony glanced at the building around him, no longer confident that he could get out of SETEC before it collapsed completely.

"Jarvis, I need you now..."

A groan met his ears, and Tony sprang into action. He surged over the flaming rubble in a single leap, landing neatly, albeit heavily on the other side. The man hadn't been killed, to Tony's dual surprise and horror. His fingers clawed at the floor weakly, as if still trying to escape and get away with the helmet he clutched in his other hand.

"Who are you?" Tony demanded now that the tables were so effectively turned.

The dying intruder grunted, forcing the words out of his lips along with a sickening bubble of blood, but only an incoherent sound escaped his mouth. A jarring, thundering noise erupted in the building about them, sending trembles through the entire structure. Tony glanced about, just in time to see and entire wall and most of the ceiling at the other end of the hall come down in a flash of heat and white-hot flames. The very floor beneath Tony's feet lurched violently. No time left now to question the intruder. Even as he looked down, Tony saw the man settle into deathly stillness. He couldn't feel for a pulse through the gauntlet, and, without Jarvis, there was no telling exactly if the man were actually deceased. There wasn't time to worry about that.

Tony snatched both the brand new Panther and his helmet from the man and clamped it back atop the suit in a practiced motion, just as a group of men similarly dressed and armed as the dead man before him. Perhaps six of them came, all lining up two practiced and ordered lines, one of them dropping to the knees to aim. There were a series of dry clicks as several of the new Saco Panthers were cocked and aimed at the millionaire. Voices shouted ordered to him all in gruff bellows, but there were too many for Tony's ears to catch any words they said, except for the intent.

"C'mon Jarvis..."

Almost immediately, a soothing, mildly British voice spoke in his ears. "System rebooted, sir."

"Perfect timing, Jarvis," Tony replied, thanking his lucky stars and curling his left hand instinctively and protectively over the place where blood seeped out.

Now that Jarvis was back, the flights system answered to his controls, coming to life with a kick. There were shots fired, as bullets pinged off his armor, but Tony hardly noticed nor cared. He surged upwards into the air, up and through one of the many holes in the ceilings, up through the sub levels to the main level. Only then, did he hesitate, pausing to double take.

There was someone there.

Tony landed on the entry level neatly, cutting the propulsion. It was a small, delicate figure, running through the heat of the fire. The person ran from him, rushing between the flames, as if there wasn't a building collapsing about them, moving on a lithe frame dressed in dark fatigues and a blank tank top, her head swaddled in a black bandana. It was a girl! She stood on such a tiny frame that the girl couldn't have been anything but a child. She'd come from nowhere, from nothing, in a burning building in the midst of what seemed like an urban war. Tony bolted again, charging down the hall towards her, ignoring the agony in his side.

The girl must have heard the clanking of metal booted feet against the tile floor. She stopped dead, whipping around to face him. Her face had been shrouded, but, unlike the mercenaries Tony had just left two floors down, the girl had tied a simple, black scarf about her nose and mouth. She bored no weapons, no guns, pistols or knives at all. Yet that didn't stop her from whirling about and holding up her hands at the metal armored man that had chased her, but not in surrender. It seemed more a martial arts stance, ready and waiting for him to charge her, rather like he stood for using his hand repulsors as weapons. In her one hand, she clutched a flash drive; the other was open and ready for a fight. The girl glared an intense warning to Tony, defiant and proud. The fire behind her flickered and popped like great wings of flames, flashed in her dark eyes as well. The wall behind her exploded with a shower of debris and dust, bust the girl didn't even flinch.

"I don't want to hurt you," Tony called, knowing that the distorted, mechanical voice emanating from his suit wouldn't quite convey the right emotion.

The girl steeled herself, her muscles tensing down her long arms. Her eyes went distant and cold for a moment as the girl threw her arms out to the side, like the beating of her wings. The girl brought them forward and threw her fists down, punching into the tile floor beneath her feet. The building quaked again as soon as her hands hit. This time, the blast was more than enough to send walls collapsing into broken heaps as floor shattered down to the sub levels.

_'How did she know?'_

Tony didn't even mentally recognize his own thought as he moved. Her sudden drop to her knees had revealed the windows behind her, open to the world, and to the police and corporate security squad lining up just beyond the glass doors to the SETEC building. The smartlink in his visor instantly highlighted the seeming hundreds of firearms now aimed at the front doors of the building, obviously readying for whatever hostile forces came charing out, black clad assassins, little girls, and Ironman included. She rose just as his long arms wrapped about her, wriggling like a fish as Tony spun her about, putting his armored back between her unprotected skin and the hail of bullets that erupted behind him. He dully felt the thuds and pings of bullets against the Mark III suit, but his mind focused more on the girl in his arms as she bucked and fought against his grip, ignoring the faint, tinkling sounds of shattered glass spilling to the ground.

Tony glanced down to her as the ends of her scarf fell to the side, to the nape of her neck where something unusual caught his eye. A tattoo marked her pale skin, in the shape of a phoenix, fiery wings spread wide and beak lifted in a cry or song. The phoenix seemed to fly with each squirm of the girl's tiny body. It was like something from a distant dream, too ironic to be true, as if choreographed somehow by divine hands.

The bullets stopped suddenly, cut off by an order from outside from a man that Tony vaguely recalled as belonging to James Rhodes. "Come out calmly and slowly with your hands up!"

The girl's breath echoed in Tony's ears as she whispered something inaudibly through her scarf. Her hushed sounds caught for a moment, and, then, an explosion erupted behind them with a deafening boom, knocking Tony and this odd girl to the ground. The floor behind them opened up as the support frame crashed down to the bottom most sub level with another awful, thundering noise. Tony scrambled to his feet immediately to assess the damage as a girder from on high took out another large chunk of the floor between them and the main exit, was well as much of the wall beside them. The SETEC's skeletal support system of massive girders came down around them now, with a gut-wrenching groan of metal rending and the sickening pops of rivets giving way to both the heat and strain of bearing excessive weight. What little remained of the floor between them and the exit had been engulfed in flames, leaving it completely impassable.

Tony reached down to the girl, snatching her by the wrist. She seemed dazed somehow, her eyes glazed and distant. It lasted only a moment, just long enough for the girl to realize just how screwed she was between the abrupt lack of an exit and the metal suited man who held her tight now. The girl jerked back, tugging on his arm to free herself. The heat distorted her image as she moved, and Tony found himself somehow wondering how she could still present such a fight between the smoke and searing heat.

"Stop fighting!" The millionaire glanced wildly about, trying to take in the details of the overhead structure before shouting, "We've got to get out of here before the whole place comes down!"

Then, without warning, the artificial intelligence girl, in her little lolita dress appeared in Tony's vision. Her eyes were wet with tears that Tony knew didn't exist ever in the real world. At any other point, Tony would have loved to ponder what hand in programming had giving this digital creature such human emotions and just how much long it had taken to craft so obviously refined of a code. However, at that moment, it only sent icing shivers up and down Tony's spine despite the raging fire about them.

"LET HER GO!" The artificial intelligence shrieked at the top of her lungs, causing Tony to cringe at the piercing wail, squeezing the girl tighter. "STOP!"

The real girl must have heard it, for she froze, her eyes wide. "Jonas..."

Before, this creature had only been trying to get away from Tony Stark, and the inventor couldn't have blamed her. Being faced with a man in a suit of armor, complete with the grim face the helmet bore, it had to be a scary thing. However, now, the fear she once held in her eyes had been firmly replaced with a pure, crystalline focus. Instead of trying desperately to break Tony's hold of her and run, the girl leapt upon him, climbing and clawing at the joints in the suit with long, slender fingers. She leapt up with a sudden speed, somehow managing to circle him and get onto his back.

"JONAS!" The girl screamed as her fingers found purchase on the neck joints.

Tony had let her move about him for a heartbeat, but, as her hands found the catches to the helmet, his frayed nerves shredded to nothing. He reached up and grabbed her firmly by her thin but muscled arms. The girl didn't fight. She seemed too focused at prying at the helm to rip it from his head. Tony threw his weight forward, dragging hard on her upper arms and flinging her over his head. He grit his teeth as the motion jerked the helmet right off his head.The girl fell with an oaf, but she landed with her eyes twinkling as she clutched her prize to her chest.

"Shit..." Tony breathed.

The girl whirled around on the balls of her heels and ran as swift as a gazelle back towards the center of the SETEC building, the fire licking at her as she moved, but never touching her. Tony growled but took off after her. He would be damned if a.) she died in this place b.) she died before he got any answers and c.) she lost his helm one way or the other. The need to know coupled with the drive to rescue powered each and every one of his strides and rushed leaps over the missing spots of the floor. He managed to keep pace with her, but both the suit and his head felt heavier with the roasting air. She burst into the stairwell and turned up the flights of stairs with a surprising speed. Tony struggled to keep up with her on the stairs, twice having to leap across gaping holes.

And, then, the pair burst out, onto the decaying, smoldering roof and into what had to be the freshest air Tony had ever tasted in his entire life. He gulped at it, drinking in the cool, crisp clarity of it, thanking his father for having designed SETEC to only reach three stories high. Bright lights flashed across the building and the smoke rising up from the inferno beneath them, accompanied by white puffs and clouds of steam hissing up from where the hoses blasted the flames.

There, she stood, peering into the helmet curiously, but not daring to wear it. "Jonas? Jonas, where are you?"

Tony felt the roof ripple beneath their feet before the girl had. He charged her, scooping one arm about her waist as he moved. The well placed clothesline not only gave him a hold on the stranger, but it knocked the wind out of her lungs, stunning her. He snatched the helmet back and slammed it onto his head as he ran. Each footstep skimming just ahead of the building as it finally gave and began to collapse inwards beneath them. There was only one chance. Tony sprang from the roof, instantly hitting the engines. The odd pair rocketed from the roof just in the nick of time.

The girl regained herself just as Tony flew them over the police ring and away from the media circus below. "JONAS!"

Again, her hands were on his helmet, reaching and clawing to tear the thing from his head, but he couldn't fight her, hold her, and keep in the air all at the same time. "Not smart, lady."

She twisted wildly and, with one final jerk, tore the helmet from Tony's head. Trees were rushing up at them with incredible speed as the jet propulsion system killed, not by the man's control. The world moved in freeze frame after that in Tony's mind, each moment of time focused into one, minute image for each beat of his heart. The branches seemed to swing and snare them, as if reaching out purposely to strike both Tony and the girl. Tony threw his weight around her, putting himself again between the girl and danger, knowing the suit could take the abuse but that the human body could not. The earth came roaring up to meet them, and they crashed in a puff of dirt into a jumbled heap with a sharp cracking sound.

Tony's head and ribcage immediately sang in a symphony of suffering along his right side. Despite all his careful plotting and designing, The man could have never completely anticipated taking the full force of a high speed impact without a powered suit. One of his ribs had most certainly broken on impact, but he couldn't let a little thing like that or the dripping stab wound slow him down, not when the girl had almost slipped from his hold again along with his helmet. Each subtle breath sent new waves of agony through his body, but he forced his hands and arms to work, to hold tight to her, but the girl ignored him, gazing into the now vacant helmet.

"Are you there, Jonas?" She cried out again, "Jonas, tell me where you are!"

However, there came no reply from the artificial intelligence, and Tony knew why. The main chest of the suit had been damaged badly on impact, probably destroying the power linkage between the arc reactor in the man's chest and the suit. The helmet had been designed to run on auxiliary power when necessary, but Jarvis would have had to kick that on. Now, it was nothing but a really smart and spiffily designed hunk of scrap metal, nothing more and nothing less. The girl grunted in annoyance and slammed the helmet back with driving force, right into Tony's temple. He'd been too distracted trying to keep hold of her to even try to dodge the hit. Tony's world went black as she freed herself from his limp arms, but the inventor slipped away from consciousness with a thin smile.

He didn't dream this time.

**XXXX**

Author's Note: Sorry it took so long to get some action going, but I hope it was worth the wait.


	5. Collateral Damage

**DUMPSHOCK - COLLATERAL DAMAGE**

Colonel James Rhodes had been on scene immediately to watch the SETEC building churning with smoke and flame. He'd been at the Stark Industries main complex late that night, doing some of his own research into different possibilities for the Mark II suit that Rhodey still intended on liberally "borrowing" from his friend. It was tiring work, sorting through hundreds of calculations and schematics, but it had somehow left Rhodes itching for more, understanding now how Tony felt whenever he started a big project. When the initial alarm went off throughout the complex, Rhodes had jumped into the black '07 Maserati Quattroporte that had been a please-forive-me gift from Tony after his rather dramatic Ironman announcement at the press conference. He had been the among the first on scene, organizing both fire, police, and corporate security teams in the chaos.

He had seen Tony enter the building by crashing through the roof. Who else could it have been in a gold and red suit that flew? Rhodes spied Tony again on the inside of the doors after a few moments, chasing some girl. She had thrown her fists down to the ground right as a part of SETEC exploded. The police and Stark Industries corporate security teams hadn't known anything about a girl nor the Ironman suit, taking aim and firing, despite Rhodes's orders. Fortunately, Tony had been smart enough to grab the kid and put his back to the bullets, shielding both of them while the colonel scrambled to call a cease fire. Rhodes watched in horror as the building exploded before them at the windows with a sparkling rain of shattered glass, so forceful that it knocked officers to the ground and blasted out the windshields and windows of cars too close to the front of SETEC. And, then, to Rhodes's horror, as the girl bolted back to the interior of the steadily collapsing building, Tony, in his infinite wisdom, gave chase. The building came crashing down minutes later, amid screams and cries of both surprise and shock.

In the chaos of the building coming down, no one else seemed to notice what Rhodes saw, and, if they did, no one said a thing. Everyone else was too distracted with the collapse and the continuing fire to do anything, anyway. Rhodes eyes were skyward, staring in wide eyed amazement as Tony rocketed off the roof of the building and into the night sky, holding something wriggling in his arms. The girl!

Rhodes let out a loud "hooah!" of approval, but stifled it when the pair started to plummet towards the ground. The pair came crashing down, at full speed. Rhodes felt his face fall as Tony and the girl vanished below some thick trees.

"Shit..."

The colonel immediately sprang into action and leapt into the Maserati. He gunned the ignition and floored it before anyone could say anything. His heart slammed in his chest as the car sped away from the scene of the fire, towards where he'd last seen Tony. The roads twisted and turned as Rhodes drove up, and into the hills, to the forests above the back side of the Stark Industries property. Hardly any people actually drove on that road, giving the man free rein to race through the hairpin turns as he sped up.

Tony had gone in a somewhat northwestern direction before falling from the sky and seemed to stay on a relatively consistent path even after he'd started on the abrupt descent. Rhodes followed as best he could in the Maserati to the obviously accidental flight plan, as much as the winding roads would allow, until he came to a small park. It had been left untouched for so very long, intended to be a scenic rest stop and nature overlook. The colonel glanced down and into the rest stop, to where the tree limbs were battered and snapped like twigs, where Tony had come down through them.

Abruptly, there came a flash of white in his headlights, jerking Rhodes's dark eyes up to the road before him. He wasted so many seconds staring down there, that Rhodes never saw her coming. The girl! He slammed on his breaks, sending up a squeal of tires into the night. She threw up her hands, pale in the glaring light, as if to protect herself, but Rhodes jerked the car hard over into a neat, practiced drift. He held his breath, watching everything in slow motion as the girl passed before his headlights and the Maserati spun into a neat 180.

The girl in her battle clothes stood there, dripping blood from a few cuts and scraps along her arms. She held her hands up still, glaring through the windshield at Rhodes for a moment with dark, brooding eyes. Then, the girl spun around and starting running down the road away from Rhodes and into the night, swallowed up by the shadows.

Rhodes let out a sigh of relief that he didn't kill the girl with his reckless driving before suddenly recalling why he'd been speeding so badly up the hills. "Tony..."

Half of Rhodes desperately wanted to catch the girl, to hold her until everything could be sorted out. After all, she'd been there at SETEC when it collapsed, she'd been _in _SETEC. The soldier in him so badly craved to go after her. However, the friend in him won out in a heartbeat. He had to go to Tony, if only to make sure his friend hadn't been hurt.

The colonel jumped out of the Maserati, bolting for the trees. It wasn't hard to follow his friend's path. Broken trees overhead and branches littered across the soft, damp loam of the forest stretched out before him, in an almost straight line from where Tony had started to come down to the long gash in the earth leading up to the actual overlook. The city, along with Stark Industries, spread out before him in a hundred thousand, twinkling lights, however, only a pale light reached up to where he stood.

And, there, lay Tony, sprawled out on the dirt, bruised and bloodied, still in his armor. "TONY!"

xxxx

A voice broke through the hazy unconsciousness that had taken Stark moments earlier. His eyes snapped open, focusing and blurring strangely. The inventor catalogued the symptom and added a possible concussion to the list of injuries he may have incurred between the fights at SETEC and the crash landing in the woods. The man blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision but successful only after a few tries.

"TONY!"

There was that voice again, far too loud. It sent spikes of pain through his ears and head. Tony shut his eyes tight again, willing his mind to recognize that it was just a potential symptom of a possible concussion, and all the vagaries that entailed.

"TONY!"

A hand roughly shook Tony by his shoulder, reawakening the stabbing agony in his right side, and the man finally opened his eyes to see just who insisted on inflicting such torture to him. The inventor groaned audible when he recognized the dark face, rounded features, and worried eyes belonging to none other than Colonel James Rhodes, partner, confidant, and, as Tony liked to think, friend. As Rhodes continued to shake him, Tony struggled to sit upright, finding it too more effort than it should have before recalling the metal suit that encased him.

"Tony, you shouldn't me moving around," the colonel argued in what sounded like concern.

The inventor shook his head gruffly, instantly regretting it as he fought a wave of nausea from venting its self all over his friend; as soon as the man regained a vague sense of composure and control over himself, Tony growled back, "I'm fine."

"No... you're not," Rhodes snapped with a curt authority. "You just took a nose dive at what speed? You just bought yourself a one way ticket to the hospital."

Tony would have argued further, but he didn't have the heart to do so. He had been out for who knew how long, and the girl had gotten away, slipping through his fingers like sand through a sieve. Tony's hand feebly explored the earth around him and came up empty. She'd taken the helm, too. He'd managed to screw up far too many times in one evening for his liking. The inventor just let his friend help him up from off the ground and into the passenger's seat of the black Maserati without much complaint except for a few hissed breaths and stifled moans as his ribs and side cried out in torment from the movement.

When Rhodes finally eased Tony into the passenger's seat, the other man looked white as a ghost, sweat beading his forehead. His breaths had gone shallow and ragged. The colonel's instincts and training kicked in immediately as he starting taking in Tony's outward symptoms. Rhodes reached for the other man's carotid artery to check his pulse, but the millionaire just pushed his hand away, shaking his head solemnly.

"I can't breath," Tony finally grunted wearily to answer and unspoken question.

Rhodes spied the thin trail of blood seeping from between the armor plating at Tony's right side and replied quickly, "We've got to get you to a doctor."

The injured man shook his head again. "No. _We_ need to get _me _back to the house and to the shop." His arm curled about his chest, his hand resting protectively over his side; Tony looked to Rhodes with perfectly lucid eyes before sighing heavily. "I need to get out of this suit."

"Done."

As Rhodes leapt back into the driver's seat of the Maserati and closed the door, Tony sat upright and shot his friend a sharp look, as if he'd suddenly just shaken off the daze of his crash landing. "Give me your phone."

"What?" Rhodes blurted out as he turned the key in the ignition to bring the engine roaring to life.

Tony didn't explain, prying a gauntlet off his right hand to hold it out to his friend. "Just give me your phone." When his friend didn't move except to shift into drive as they started uphill again, back towards Malibu, Tony made a circular wave of his hand. "Sometime this century, Rhodey." When his friend finally, grudgingly handed over his phone, Tony couldn't resist a comment. "Oh, wow, this is... archaic."

"Y'know, they say beggars can't be choosers," Rhodes quipped back.

It took Tony a moment to realize that he hadn't dialed the number he wanted... ever, which was a sad admission; the only thing worse than that was the fact that he couldn't remember the number at all. Honestly, who dialed their own home when there was no family living there to call or when it was on speed dial? Worse, who knew what his number was with how many times Pepper Potts had resorted to changing it to cut down on calls from the press and scores of women? He shook his head, chuckling to himself for a moment as he actually had to scroll through Rhodes's saved numbers to find his own.

"What's so funny?" his friend inquired, letting the Maserati tuck into a sloping, turn as the asphalt fell away and the hill dipped beneath the tires.

Tony shook his head, a tiny smirk on his lips. "Can't remember my own number."

As soon as he found his own name and home number, the millionaire punched it and held the phone up to his ear, listening; it took but a moment for Jarvis to answer with his intensely polite but desperately droll voice. "Good evening, Colonel Rhodes. I regret to inform you that Mr. Stark is-"

"Calling right now," Tony piped up, interrupting his own electronic butler.

"Good evening, Mr. Stark," Jarvis responded quickly, as thought correcting himself for the small error of mistaken identity.

The millionaire ignored it. "Yeah, yeah. Hey, listen, I need you to find my head."

"Your head, sir?"

"Yes," Tony quickly replied in mild annoyance.

The computer responded quickly. "Judging by the coherence of your words, firmly attached to your neck, sir."

"Not that," the man backed, lightly smacking Rhodes as he snickered and drove. "Locate the Mark III helmet if possible." Tony drew in a slow, even breath, steadying himself against the throbbing pains. "Activate auxiliary power and track motion."

It took a moment for Jarvis to process. "Northbound on County Road 6, two and three quarters of a mile north of your position and increasing in distance at a rate of 5 miles per hour."

_"Walking speed,"_ the man mentally calculated. Tony sternly ordered, "Turn around."

Rhodes blinked in shock. "What?"

"You heard me."

The colonel shook his head. "No, no, no. Tony, are you out of your mind?" Rhodes turned his attention to the road to swing about another tight switch back turn. "Look at yourself."

"Turn around," the inventor repeated solemnly.

Rhodes pursed his lips together in a tight frown before gripping the steering wheel tightly and throwing the Maserati into another hard 180. The Maserati swung around the front end of the car with a screech of tires. He gunned it back into the hills, northbound towards their prey.

"I hope you have a seriously good plan," Rhodes growled under his breath.

"Jarvis," Tony went on talking to the artificial intelligence that ran his home, practically ignoring his friend and partner in crime; the man was a natural born problem solver and thrived on this kind of situation. "As soon as you've got the auxiliary power on the helmet, relay me any audio input."

"Right away, sir."

Tony glanced to his left. "Don't I always have a seriously good plan?"

A female voice spoke over the phone, stopping any retort or joke that Rhodes could have made before the thought had even crossed his mind, but Tony knew that she wasn't in his home. "-Need an extraction- County Road 6, just South of Northridge Road."

"Did you get the job done?" a gruff male asked.

"Yes. And I got a little bonus."

Tony raised a curious eyebrow, and even the unseen, unknown male sounded intrigued as it drawled, "Really now?"

"I think I found him," the girl answered, her voice just as tired as Tony felt. She sighed, and the inventor could almost hear her shaking her head in exhaustion. "So, can I get my pick-up now?"

"Already on my way, Kitten."

There came a click, much like the sound of a flip phone being closed. Then, there was an odd sound of rustling, followed by a deep, solemn breath and footsteps along a lonely, quiet path. She was walking on foot, just as Tony had surmised from her speed. And she wasn't that far away, judging from the miles clicking off on the Maserati's odometer. As they rounded a corner, the girl came into view, the gleaming red and yellow helmet still in her hand.

What happened next cannot be described. It was one of those rare moments which, even when lived and experienced, could never be understood entirely by those who had been a part of it. In truth, Tony Stark only ever recalled fuzzy details of the convoy attack, small snapshots of moments jumbled in his mind in a sequence that he still doubted was chronological in parts. Later in life, when Tony Stark thought about this very moment, on that empty, barren stretch of County Road 6, he often saw it differently as time colored the incident, often encompassing more details and a longer time than had actually occurred during the briefest of instants in time and space.

As soon as the girl had heard them on the road, she whirled about with the grace and agility of a trained dancer, not someone who had just narrowly survived both the destruction of a major building and a harrowing free fall in the woods. Her hands shot up, one palm open and pointing to the sleek, black, Italian car. Her other hand held up the helmet like a trophy skull. In Tony's memories, he often recalled a dark thought crossing his mind when she did that, a mix between remembering what happened after she made a similar gesture in the SETEC building and pondering- hoping, really- if Rhodes had kept up the excellent insurance that Tony set him up with.

And, then, they came to a jarring stop. Tony, in his recollections, imaging seeing the girl press her hands slightly forward, her eyes narrowing and grower darker somehow. He sometimes thought he saw a flicker of light before her, in the shape of great, massive wings. He sometimes thought he heard the screech of a great bird of prey. Tony also, in his later recountings of the tale, admitted to suffering a mild concussion from his impact in the woods, often wondering if it had just been a visual hallucination brought about by the memory of the phoenix tattoo that rested between the girl's shoulder blades. However, both Tony and Rhodes would later agree that something odd happened then, as the air seemed to condense, ripple, and distort before the girl in their headlights.

The man distantly heard the scream of breaks as the Maserati slammed to a halt, the front end crumpling with a horrific crunch of metal on metal, as if slamming into a brick wall that simply wasn't there. Tony had often heard that car accidents were different for all people, like all life and death situations. Until he'd actually been on the receiving end of his own weapons he'd never truly known how he could and would react to something like that. But, now, both he and Rhodes had seen grizzly situations in the past. Neither screamed. Instead, both drew in a quick inhalation as their muscles instantly braced to absorb the shock of the sudden deceleration. The girl, however, in the white light of the headlights, didn't move a muscle, never flinching and never giving an inch as the once beautiful, slick as sin Maserati twisted into an overgrown beer can, nor when the two men, neither wearing a seat belt were thrown forward and through the windshield.

There were no coherent recollections to be had after that. Just a series of images. The gleaming black of a now scrunched and dented hood, shortening. Their own reflections hanging there in the glossy ebony finish, smooth as ice, clear as water, and dark as night. The shower of sparkling bits of glass. And, then, when they should have been flying right into the girl, hitting something hard and dropping to the hood of the Maserati with dual thuds and groans. A motorcycle raced towards them in the night. The man didn't think he'd lost consciousness, but there was at least a small chunk of time he couldn't recall. When Tony's mind finally caught up with real time after that, it took the man a second to realize he'd rolled off the hood of the ruined Maserati to the cold, unforgiving pavement.

Tony's sight immediately snapped up to where the girl still stood, as if frozen in time and space, her eyes wide as it in horror. She panted hard, just staring in shock at the mangled remains of what had once been a sleek car. The man moved before his mind could even process it, driven by adrenaline alone, letting it dull each and every ache and pain in him. He shot to his feet, throwing his weight at the girl and tackling her to the road with a meaty thump. The helmet to the Mark III suit clanked and bounced away from them down the pavement. Tony knew he'd pay for that later, just as much as he knew the weight of the suit could simply crush the girl, but the adrenaline coursing through his veins overrode any coherent thought save one that raced through his mind over and over again in a sick mantra.

_"I should be dead. I should be dead. I should be dead."_

The girl growled at him, a hoarse, feral sound, her senses instantly brought back from whatever reverie she'd been held in by the jolting body slam. She fought beneath the pressing weight of the exosuit, but it wasn't with the same vigor as before. Oh, the girl put up a valiant and ferocious struggle, but just weaker, like all the energy had been drained from her but not her defiance. She swung her fists to him, reaching to land a blow to his ears or eyes. Tony jumped, shifting his position over her to plant his knees on her lower arms. He held her down, though, throwing all of his weight into her and pressing down on his shoulders- like _he'd_ been held down before. The girl reared back, spat in his face, and struck him soundly against his forehead with her own skull.

"Your turn," Tony barked before returning the blow exactly, sending her flopping back limply, her eyes rolling into the back of her head for but a second before flashing to him again, aggressive and focused. "Now, tell me who you are." When she refused to answer, the man stood, dragging her to her knees and crushing her shoulders in his strong grip. "What were you doing in there?" Tony screamed in rage now, giving the girl a hard shake. "Who you are?!" He backhanded her savagely. "Tell me!"

She didn't. Instead, her hands came up, pressing against the cool metal of his Mark III suit with the tenderness of a lover as she whispered something under her scarf. And, then, things became a little fuzzy. Tony was certain, dead certain, even years later, that nothing had happened, that his adrenaline had just faded and the otherwise crippling wounds had finally exerted themselves. He remembered her eyes, glaring up at him, somehow with a golden sheen to them. The breath went cold in his lungs as his heart contracted abruptly, as if twisting about its self. His muscles clenched, all of them, all at once. He felt the life slip from him as darkness encroached on him, but not the blessed darkness of unconsciousness. This was a deeper, pure void that threatened to swallow him whole. Ice squeezed through his veins, chilling him to the core. The deep cold stole the breath from his lungs. It felt like his blood, his very essence, seeped out of his chest and into her waiting fingertips, worse than being hit with a rain of tiny shrapnel. Tiny, mercurial balls drifted across his vision. His body stiffened under him before giving way. Eternity spread before him invitingly, and, then, he remembered nothing but a void and oblivion that ate him alive.

However, Rhodes had seen it all. He'd been thrown somehow to the driver's side of the mangled Maserati, surprised at his consciousness and lack of physical trauma after whatever had happened to the car. The wind had been knocked clean out him, leaving Rhodes gagging and out of breath, but that was perhaps the worst of his injuries. The colonel had rolled onto his side, coughing for a moment, before finally looking up.

In the center of the road stood Tony, bellowing at the girl that he held by her shoulders. The stranger touched her hands ever so gently on the chest piece of Tony's armor and froze. A flash of electric light danced across the pair. Tony cocked his head to one side as if listening to something distant and far off, his mouth hanging open in a silent scream. Then, his knees buckled, and Tony crashed to his knees. The inventor's gaze fixed on the girl, as she stared back. Then, both went limp and lifeless, leaning in to one another. Tony's head drooped low, but Rhodes couldn't be certain from where he stood whether the other man was conscious or not at the time.

But, to Rhodes's horror, the girl stood, letting Tony slip bonelessly to the ground beside her. She trembled like a leaf where she stood, swaying on unsteady feet. The girl twitched strangely once, almost a nervous gesture. She reached up and ripped the scarf from her face, casting it aside. She was beautiful, her features delicately pointed but vaguely Mediterranean. Her face had gone horribly pale in a heartbeat to a marble white pallor. Blood trickled from her nose and the corner of her mouth. Rhodes knew it should be scarlet, but, in the dark of the night, it looked ebony, like thick ink, giving an unsettling effect. Roughly, the girl wiped her lips and nose with the back of her hand, smearing the blood across her cheek. The girl began to move in an odd, awkward gait, her head sweeping from side to side.

Rhodes reached for his sidearm, getting to his knee and taking aim. "STOP!"

The girl didn't listen. She had found what she was looking for. The helmet. The girl knelt and picked up the thing, cradling it close to her chest again.

"I SAID FREEZE, BITCH!"

A motorcycle rounded one of the curves not too far away, its headlight peering around the corner and illuminating the grizzly scene before ducking back behind the trees. The girl turned towards it, stumbling off as she did.

"I WILL NOT HESITATE TO FIRE!" Rhodes barked, cocking the pistol.

The motorcycle drew up close to them. It was a sleek, neat thing. Rhodes recognized it to be a newer model Ducati of some kind, in neat black. It was the kind of bike Tony would have liked. Fast, sexy, and expensive. The man on the back of the bike, looked more like he belonged on an old school chopper. All leather and grit, complete with a black bandana keeping his long, braided grey hair out of his face. He pulled up beside the girl, his eyes sparkling mischievously.

"Havin' some trouble there, little lady?" it was the male voice they'd overhead on the phone; the girl nodded weakly in response and just fell into the man's open, waiting arms.

Rhodes licked his dry, salty lips before talking a fierce step forward and ordering, "Leave her."

"'Fraid I can't," the man answered, pulling the weak girl onto the bike with him.

"I'm Colonel James Rhodes, and she is a suspect in a potentially terroristic bombing at Stark Industries."

This newcomer nodded slowly as Rhodes introduced himself, as if seriously listening to it, before saying. "Well, yeah." He stroked his chin and flashed a toothy grin, "But she's so much fun to hang out with, aren't you, Kitten?"

The girl gave a small nod and a soft, tried whimper, balling up with the helmet held in a white knuckled grip. Rhodes took another step towards them, but the man just reached to his side and pulled a shotgun that looked nothing like anything Rhodes had seen in his entire military career, including the time spent with Stark working on experimental firearms. He gave a smirk, cocked the thing, and aimed it right for Tony's head. Now that he had gotten close enough, Rhodes could see Tony's eyes open but vacant, staring up at the sky but seeing nothingness. His eyes did not move, nor did he seem to even draw breath, and the colonel immediately began to worry that the girl had killed Tony somehow.

"I'd be backin' up if I were you."

Rhodes swallowed hard, finding it so very difficult to move, but his heart relented. After everything that had happened, he couldn't let the stranger just splatter Tony's head on the side of a county road in the hills. His pride stood in the way, but friendship beckoned stronger. The colonel let out a sigh of annoyance before remembering the helmet. They'd caught them before by tracking the Mark III helmet. They could catch them again with the same trick.

The colonel took a step back, and the stranger nodded, grinning from ear to ear. "Smart move."

The biker turned about in a neat circle, burning out on the back tire before zooming off and into the night, the Ducati screaming as they rode away. Rhodes turned his attention to the man on the ground, still staring with glossy eyes into nothingness. The colonel gave him a rough shake, and Tony's eyelids slid shut. The inventor let out a groan.

"Tony?"

"I'm alive," he croaked, rolling onto his left side and gazing to where the girl had just been, just ten or twelve feet away. "_So very close."_

Tony lifted his gaze to his friend. Rhodes looked a little worse for wear, a few cuts and scrapes here and there, as well as a nasty bruise blooming on the side of his forehead. Tony recognized how miraculous it was that Rhodes was alive, let alone moving or talking; he hadn't had the exosuit to protect him like Tony had. Yet, somehow, the inventor knew Rhodes couldn't have looked as bad as Tony felt. Not after whatever she did to him. He felt empty and dead, cold and lifeless as a corpse, but both his respiration and thready pulse were enough to prove otherwise.

"Yeah." Rhodes let out a tired breath, letting his hand rest on the shoulder of Tony's armored suit. "What... the fuck... was that?"

Tony shook his head limply as he tried to sit up and failed miserably, curling into a ball on the ground. His head swam with an almost drunken dizziness, but without the pleasant effects. The girl could have been anything and for any reason, for all he knew. Every muscle in his body hurt all at once, but Tony tried his best to ignore it, his mind trapped in thought of the girl. At that moment, for one of the few, rare times in his life, Tony's mind just refused to address the problem, churning more about events that had just transpired there on the winding county road. She'd... no. There was simply no way possible that she could have done that without some form of weapon. Instead, the man just stared at the spot where the girl had just been a few minutes earlier, his mind lingering on whatever it was she'd just done to him with just her touch and gaze.

His hands drifted down to his metallic chest, to where her hands had been upon him when... when_ it _had happened. His fingers scratched slightly at the metal, really twitching more than consciously moving, lingering there. His hands had gone cold and clammy, corpse like, both in and out of the gauntlets. She'd taken something from him.

Tony didn't know how long exactly he'd been sitting there when a second car pulled up. It hurt so much to breath and think at the same time, but his pondering at least dulled the agony. He dimly thought he heard Pepper's voice, shrill and concerned. The man just drifted along as hands helped him to his feet and into a second car, but he couldn't help but think about nothing else but the girl.

_"How could she do it? Impossible." _His eyes drifted down to his left hand, still clutching his side, thinking of the repulsor hidden in the palm. _"No. Not impossible."_ His mind slipped and fuzzed a bit at the thought. _"Possible."_

Pepper cried out from the front seat as he slumped against the door. "Hang on, Tony!"

xxxx

One of the few truly unsavory tasks Pepper Potts and James Rhodes had to perform during their long tenure as both friends and employees of Tony Stark was to get him safely and soundly after a night spent drinking far too much, including hauling him from whatever party he'd been at or whatever car he'd pass out in. Generally speaking, Pepper loathed that little chore above all the others that Tony forced her to endure.

However, this once, she didn't mind. Rhodes had phone Pepper to pick them up along some deserted stretch of road, and the two men had tumbled into the car. Tony'd argued meekly that they couldn't go to the hospital, not like that, but his words were just exhalations with no force to them. It took both Rhodes and Pepper working together to lift Tony from the back seat of her car. He made soft sounds that broke the woman's heart with each step they took. Whether or not he was truly conscious of the move, neither could guess until they got down the steps to the shop below the house. His eyes were open, but they looked empty and dead.

In the shop, Rhodes shouldered most of Tony's weight, helping him onto a metallic platform, releasing him only as robotic arms took hold of the man's arms and supported his weight. Jarvis took over at that point. The artificial intelligence moved the robotic arms about the millionaire in an elaborate concern. Pepper watched on in worry, chewing on her lip as Jarvis freed Tony from the suit and the slumped into Rhodes's arms.

The colonel sat Tony down on the edge of stool, taking a pocketknife and slitting a long gash in the side of the body suit, revealing a bloody gash there. Pepper gasped audibly, but neither man seemed to notice. Tony remained in his own world, as if locked in his mind by whatever trauma had gone on. Rhodes, meanwhile, had become businesslike, poking and prodding at the would. Tony just sat there, letting him, numb to the world around him.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Rhodes admitted with a shrug, unsure whether he said it to comfort Tony or Pepper. "A couple of stitches, and you'll be fine."

Yet, both of them knew that wasn't entire true. Not from the way Tony just sat there, unflinching as Rhodes cleaned, sutured, and bandaged the wound on his side. Nor from the way he said not a word, uttered not a usual Tony Stark complaint or snide comment when Pepper and Rhodes cut and peeled the body suit off his chest. He hardly responded when Rhodes taped his ribs. Not a whimper. Tony just gazed out vacantly with cold, dead eyes, even as they helped him up the stairs and into bed. Tony lie in silence as Rhodes fetched him some painkillers from a well stocked first aid kit that Potts had insisted upon putting together after the first time she'd caught him coming home with bullet holes in the suit. He submitted as Pepper lifted his head to place the pills upon his tongue and offer him some water. She sat beside him, holding him until the man settled. Only after that did Tony let his eyes close and relinquish himself to merciful sleep again.

She shuddered as she listened to his hushed, but ragged breaths before slipping away from him, turning off the light and shutting the door behind her. _"Oh, Tony, when is this going to stop? When you kill yourself? When you come home too damaged to get back up?"_

Then, Pepper's face grew set, as she folded her long arms across her chest and glared at the man sitting in the living room. "Now, are you going to explain to me what happened out there, Colonel, or shall I employ some of Mr. Stark's inventions to extract the information from you?"

**XXXX**


	6. Ground Zero

**DUMPSHOCK - GROUND ZERO**

Pepper Potts listened as James Rhodes explained what had happened that night in a shocked silence. The man recounted the entire event with a cold distance to his voice, drinking a Killians as he did. Part of the way through the story, Pepper wished she had something to drink, preferably something strong. He had paused only twice during his tale. Once was to let the military crew he'd called to pick up the mangle Maserati drop the car off at the very end of the garage. The other time, it was when his voice hitched for but a moment before the man told Pepper about whatever had happened when the girl put her hands on Tony's chest.

When he'd finished, Rhodes felt thoroughly exhausted and drained beyond belief. The pair sat in an awkward quiet for a few moments before the need to rest and sleep caught up with Rhodes. The colonel excused himself and made for the guest bedroom to hunker down for the night.

Pepper, however, didn't think she could ever possibly hope to sleep after hearing a story like that. The woman snuck into Tony's room to sit beside him, to watch him breath and know he was still alive. The girl could have killed him, possibly had killed him, with just her hands and her gentle touch through the suit of armor. The invincible Ironman was vincible and human, just like any other man. Beneath all the metal and gadgets, Stark was still flesh and bone like any other, and just as easily broken mentally and physically. The woman sat by his side on a comfortable chair, occasionally rising on the four hour intervals to administer another round of antibiotics and pain killers to her employer, her heart swelling with sympathy.

"Oh, Tony. We could have lost you tonight, didn't we?" He didn't say anything, but Pepper found herself half-heartedly smiling anyway. "And you know how much I loathe the very thought of job hunting."

xxxx

Stark didn't dream that night, or, if he did, the man didn't recall it.Awareness returned to Tony Stark gradually, like awaking from a drunken stupor through the long night. Cool hands stroked his forehead and hair. Chalky pills were placed on his tongue and sweet water gently put to his lips for him to instinctively drink. The light finally grew about him until he finally awoke completely. His head throbbed, as did the rest of his body. Warm sheets shrouded him. A soft bed stretched out beneath him. His own. Gentle breaths met his ears, but they were not his own.

Slowly, Tony lifted his hand to the arc reactor on his chest, feeling both its consistent but faint hum and steady rise and fall of his chest, along with the beating of his heart. He'd been dead last night, dead on the road with that girl's hands upon his armor. He'd felt the very life seep from within him as electricity coursed through his veins. Yet, the oblivion that awaited beyond had been an almost welcoming one. But, there Tony was, alive and home.

And there, Tony awoke with a renewed vigor. It wasn't an alien sensation to the millionaire, this sudden drive and surge. No, he'd felt this all too clearly before, when faced with the Ten Rings and seeing his own weapons in the hands of terrorists. The man had let his helmet and a bit of the Ironman, smartlink, and Jarvis technologies fall into a terrorist's hands. As such, that familiar, driving hunger crept back into Tony, fueling him to study, to explore, and, above all else, to build. He felt... rebooted, in a way.

Dim light from the blue-white of his arc reactor illuminated his familiar master bedroom with a pale glow, along with the figure sleeping in a chair beside him. Even the faint light hurt as Tony focused on the shape and form curled up there. The opacity had been mercifully left on; anything brighter would have been too brutal to his head.

Tony smiled to himself as he swung his legs over the side of the bed; Pepper had sat by him all night long and into the day. She looked exhausted, her eyes shut in a peaceful lull. Dark rings framed her eyes where heavy bags hung under them, but she was still beautiful. Even in the same, rumpled suit she'd wore the day before, Pepper Potts looked gorgeous. The millionaire rose cautiously, treating his battered body with care, and peeled the comforter from off his bed and draped it over her. He fought the instinctive impulse to lean in and place a tender kiss on her forehead in thanks.

No. No time for that now, not when there was work to do.

He glanced at the clock before leaving and easing the door shut behind him. 4:01 A.M. A full day. It didn't shock the man to see that he'd been out for so long. The long sleep had renewed Tony, refocused him. Even the splitting migraine seemed bearable under this turn. He had new problems to solve and felt the same, driving need to work out these puzzles that had been laid before him.

Out in the kitchen, the familiar form of James Rhodes stood in the kitchen, peering into the fridge for something- anything- edible. "Doesn't Tony keep any _real_ food in this place?"

"I order out... a lot," Tony conceded, delighting in Rhodes's startled jump.

Rhodes nodded and sighed. "Figures."

The inventor reached into the fridge and pulled a rather innocuous looking, stainless steel pitcher out to pour himself a glass of seaweed shake. It held the awful, stomach turning appearance of pureed grass clippings, and a god-awful, salty, damp smell to go with it. He gulped down half of it, feeling rather tickled to see Rhodes visibly cringe at the sight of the disgusting drink.

The military man pushed a newspaper across the table, with the title 'Daily Bugle' emblazoned across the masthead. The headline as well as the image below it caught Tony's eye. 'Ironman Madman' The image was a crystal clear photograph of Tony rising from the building the night before as the roof collapsed underfoot.

"Well, at least it's a decent photo this time," Tony said, his lips twinging into a small smirk. "Usually the Bugle sticks to 'Oh-What-A-Drunken-Womanizer-Tony-Stark-Is' or blurry pics that could be me... or the Loch Ness Monster."

He read on the article by the name of J. Jonah Jameson. _"In the late hours of last night, the infamous Ironman was seen fleeing the scene of a massive explosion at a corporate office and testing facility on Stark Industries main grounds. In an act of terrorism that could be rivaled only perhaps by Manhattan's own menace, Spiderman, Ironman single-handedly destroyed one of the country's leading laboratories in electronics and robotics research. This humble reporter must ask, why would Tony Stark, who claims to be Ironman, destroy his own facilities? Because he wouldn't. Tony Stark is a drunken womanizer who spends most of his time driving his father's company into the ground and chasing skirts. Claiming to be the infamous Ironman is clearly just further evidence to the fact that Tony Stark is still suffering from post traumatic stress disorder stemming from his recent captivity..." _Tony had read enough.

"How are you feeling?" the colonel asked softly, passing him a bottle of white pills.

Tony threw two pills back with a big gulp of the green liquid before pocketing the plastic bottle. "Not too bad." The inventor grimaced slightly, his hand reaching to his chest and gesturing to the arc reactor sunken between his ribs. "I've felt worse."

"I know."

Stark sighed. "I'll be fine."

"What happened last night?"

"That's what I'm going to find out." Tony topped the glass off again and held the pitcher up towards his friend with a coy smirk. "Want some?"

"Not on your life," Rhodes quickly replied with a wave of his hand.

"Beggars can't be choosers," Tony teased, recalling the comment from the night before on the winding road.

His friend shook his head. "I'm not _that _desperate."

The other man shrugged before taking both the pitcher and his glass towards the steps. "Suit yourself. It's pretty much all there is in the kitchen right now."

It was the truth. Between everything that had been going on, Tony had hardly found the time to bother cooking. Instead, he found himself ordering in or eating out almost every meal. The only things left in the many cabinets were seasonings stored in neat, precise rows over the stove. The only food in the fridge was a mostly empty bottle of ketchup, a couple of fruit flavored drink mixers, and the green slurry that almost passed for food.

Tony went down and into the shop not bothering to turn on any of the lights, feeling so much more at home among the machines than in the house above. Only after he trudged down the steps and shut the glass door behind him could Tony let down the facade he'd put up for Rhodes that he'd been the same, old, healthy, happy, and joking Tony Stark. He'd always felt that way, but, somehow, this was different. The world thrummed and whispered about him, as the machines and robots seemed to coax their master to join them in the dark of the garage and shop. Stark felt welcomed and vaguely reassured by their presence, even the few ancient robots he'd threatened so very often to resign to various terrible fates, including melting down, donation to community colleges, and, in his more creative moments, the home game of Battlebots in the garage. They moved with him, following as they always had, but it felt different somehow.

Tony sat at his computer, ignoring the feeling when Jarvis spoke up. "Good afternoon, Mr. Stark. I trust you are feeling as best as can be expected."

The man shifted his weight to get comfortable in his chair, wincing as the sutures dug viciously into his side to hold the wound together. "Yes." He sipped at the noxious concoction of seaweed slurry, hardly noticing the taste or the smell after all these years he'd drank it. "Start a new project folder for me, Jarvis."

"Can one assume it will be stored on the secure hard drive with the Mark II and Mark III schematics?"

Tony nodded slowly. "Yes." He thought for a moment. "Label it _Phoenix_."

"Done, sir."

The inventor sat before the computer console before him, the vast space of the table spreading before him where a holographic display rose from it. Ages ago, the shop didn't have such technology. Tony had found a pleasure in the tactile sensation of drawing things out himself, and a few white boards and chalkboards still lingered in storage and against the walls from those times, one or two still bearing old notes that had survived not being wiped away after all this time. Tony had taken the idea and fitting it into the holographic thing, making it part stylus responsive and part hand responsive so Tony could both write and sculpt in light.

Tony scratched his chin, thinking and contemplating the facts. He made a few notes in midair, hardly noticing when the scribbles of green light converted neatly to Arial. First thing was first. _"Resonance. Ares/Stark joint project. Obadiah."_ Tony paused at that last word, frowning at the thought. Then, the man underlined his once friend and business partner's name twice to emphasize it, knowing now that he could not allow himself to be blinded by the friendship that had once been there. Even incarcerated, Obadiah Stane was a smart man with more connections than Tony could have ever dreamed. The signed contracts Nicholas Aurelius had presented the other day were just more evidence damning Stane's reputation.

The man nodded to himself. "Jarvis, run a simulation for last nights events at SETEC based off of current surveillance data."

A holographic image of the building drew up immediately before him in outline form. Entire rooms were blocked out, and small, green people walked the halls. A few security guards were laughing even. Everything seemed normal, except for the small cluster of people in the second sub level. There were too many, and all huddled about another person, like they knew something was coming.

"Stop." He peered close to the grouping, flanking one another in an ordered formation. "Stark Industries security?"

"Negative, sir."

Tony nodded at the response, not surprised by it, oddly. He let the simulation continue. Then, she burst in through the door. Tony would have recognized her anywhere, even in green, holographic form, by her entranced alone. The front of the building exploded inward for her to enter. She fought like a hellion, taking down the two laughing guards at the front entryway with little to no effort before making her way down and through the building until a second security force entered the building. Tony recognized the man at the lead to be Nick Fury, wondering just how S.H.I.EL.D. got involved in that mess as he noted it down. The girl stopped in place, holding her arms before her to these new comers. Then, the simulation failed for a moment before returning as the building came crashing down.

"Stop." The image froze again; Tony rubbed his aching forehead. "Why did it stop in the middle like that?"

"Insufficient data to accurately render," Jarvis responded.

Tony nodded, realizing that the security system had either been completely destroyed or badly compromised during the fire. "Incorporate the memory cache from the Mark III suit."

Jarvis did as told, but it offered little more answers. Only after Tony came down through the roof did the image start to render again, and the man had been painfully aware of everything that occurred after that. It only offered a limited new range of render, as well, and only in skip frames. Tony furrowed his eyebrows for a moment before realizing that the moments lost from his visual cache were all during his visits from the electronic lolita.

"Damn hacker."

Tony contemplated the situation for a moment before adding the word "_hacker"_ to his notes. He quickly drew up a basic sketch of the girl he'd seen in his visor. The lolita dress, the great big butcher knife, and the long, dirty hair. He'd seen this before, somewhere, nagging at the back of his head. Tony scrawled a few quick notations on the behavior of the code and moved on to something far more important now.

"Jarvis, play visual cache 2 minutes before secondary explosion at SETEC entrance."

The artificial intelligence immediately brought up the image from his point of view of running up to the girl, throwing his arms about her and turning his back to protect her from a hail of bullets. Load of good that had done him in the end. She struggled in his grip beneath him, but Tony wasn't watching for that. He leaned in, waiting for the perfect moment.

"Stop," Tony ordered. "Isolate the tattoo."

Jarvis outlined the tattoo from the back of her neck and drew it up in a second screen. It had seemed a live thing on her neck, as though it could fly right off and snap at him. However, now, it looked alien and dead.

"Save image of her with image of tattoo, print two copies."

Twin copies of paper jetted from his printer in less than a minute, full color with extreme detail, showing a full body image of her, with her arms outspread, about to make the explosions occur, however she did it, alongside the tattoo. He'd give one to Rhodes later. He looked to the two separate images displayed holographically before him before reaching out to push the intangible things together. Tony stared at her for a moment, gazing at those dark eyes to her well hidden face. She seemed to look right back at him through the image.

Below it, he began to copy down whatever notes he could scrap together from his memories. _"Kitten - Probable alias_." That was what the heavily accented man had called her when she phoned for help. Tony thought of her features. _"Young, late teens to late twenties. 120 lbs. Brown eyes. "Intimate knowledge of SETEC." _She'd obviously known exactly where she was going judging from how she'd acted that night. _"Demolitions expert." _Again, any fool could have seen that. _"Closed combat fighting." _It seemed a given, as well. _"Possible forcefield technology?"_

Tony sighed, shaking his head. That seemed a dead end even before he'd copied it down. Yes, the Maserati in its crumpled heap on the other side of the garage served as a stark reminder to the fact that whatever had happened on the road last night _HAD_ happened. Whatever it was. Yet Tony couldn't seem to figure out the right clues. He scrawled down a few notes on it. _"Invisible. Intense impact strength. Short duration. Possible repulsor technology." _Then, Tony contemplated the variables or what could cause such a truly unique stopping force, coming up short entirely. He'd could back to that later.

His mind pulled together the small facts. She'd known precisely where she was going, and precisely how to get in. The girl also had to have been in the building prior to that night to plant her explosives, meaning she had access to SETEC. The only people who did where either Stark or Ares personnel, and Tony seriously doubted that she worked for anyone other than Ares considering how adamant Aurelius had been about getting their pet project back. Tony nodded to himself, scribbling, _"Potential Ares associate._"

Then, he moved on to the assault team that had been poised and in position before the attack, thinking of the dark suits. _"Currently unreleased Saco Panther."_ Tony took a frantic moment to search for the firearm before finding it resting on the table beside bloody gauze and antisepetic. Either Rhodes or Pepper must had taken the thing from him the night before and set there. Tony placed it over the console and let Jarvis scan it, importing a precise diagram of the semi-automatic. Tony exploded the view on the gun, noticing something usual there amid all the otherwise normal parts. A small camera mount. He'd spend some time tinkering with that later.

"Jarvis, would you be a dear and find out who I'm supposed to return this to?"

The artificial intelligence worked, isolating the registration on the firearm. "Ares Industries Corporate Security."

Tony grinned. He'd gotten the bastard pegged. Aurelius would hang for this. He just needed more evidence. Tony began to disassemble the firearm, removing the tiny flash drive like chip that stored the video data. The well designed little thing actually resembled a digital camera card, and Tony easily patched it into his computer, sitting back to watch a gun's eye view of the SETEC incident. However, it didn't happen anything like Tony thought it had.

The image came to life in the basement of SETEC, in the dark laboratory that had once housed Resonance. There was no audio, but the camera panned forward. Its bearer had obviously been ordered to advance as the image shook and trembled from the explosions. The hallway was already engulfed in flames when it emerged. And, there, at the end of the hall, stood the girl. He expected the man to stand down, to salute, to do something to associate that this wasn't the enemy. However, the man immediately opened fire, unloading his clip, at the girl. She ducked behind a corner, racing away.

A shiver raced down Tony's spine as he looked to the notes he'd just made and scratched out the potential Ares association. "Jarvis, locate Mark III helmet."

"Malibu W, penthouse level."

The response startled Tony for a moment at the sheer audacity of it, but the events of the prior night warned him that nothing was impossible. W. It was one of those posh hotels that had sprung up all over the world, offering high class rooms for even higher prices than anywhere else, but catering to the young and the rich like Tony. He'd stayed there, several times, in fact. The new minimalist approach to design and the wonderful restaurant-bar had been more than enough to entice Tony to bring a woman or two there. And the penthouse offered a Malibu view that was rivaled only by Tony's mansion perched on the cliffs.

"Hack the registry. Let's see who's been staying in my suite," Tony ordered.

"A Miss Pussy Galore is registered there."

The inventor raised an eyebrow at the glaringly obvious alias ripped right from James Bond. "How'd she pay?"

"A corporate credit card registered to Drive-Ware Technologies, a subsidiary of Mitsuhama Computer Technologies, paid for the suite yesterday."

Tony blinked for a moment. There had to be a mistake. There simply had to be. Japan's MCT wasn't a well known company to most Americans, but Tony Stark had heard of them in faint whispers among different circles. To the public eye, Mitsuhama looked like a perfectly normal computer and robotics company. However, just like Stark Industries and Ares, MCT had heavy ties to the weapons manufacturing. They had been well known among other arms industrialists for their notorious Zero Zone policy, a concept in which there is no penetration, no survival, no prisoners, and no surrender. Any and all intruders, by this policy, were killed on sight with a shoot first, ask questions later policy. Their corporate security squads were elite fighting machines rivaled by no special ops group anywhere in the world. It had been highly unorthodox to western eyes, but it kept MCT shrouded in a constant veil of intrigue, as the company cranked out generation after generation of novel and unique weapons. Additionally, it was no great secret that Stark, Ares, and Mitsuhama were rival corporations.

And this 'Kitten?' She was on their payroll. And, now, Mitsuhama, one of Stark Industries greatest rivals in the world of computers and robotics, had a key component to the Mark III suit. They could backward engineer from that just like Stane had from the Mark I suit that had been recovered in the desert. Another Iron Monger could be walking the streets in weeks, maybe less considering the ample resources available to MCT and the skills of their trade.

"Display Mark III helmet visual feed," Tony ordered sternly.

A large window appeared before him in the air, displaying a room that Tony knew well. The shades were drawn, but the visual enhancement automatically compensated for the dark. The Mark III helmet appeared to be atop the bed, amid a pile of wrinkled sheets. There came a small moan of dreaming from the sheets, a deep exhalation really, and Tony recognized the form as human in shaped, curved and slender. It was the girl, from her hips down to her toes. She lie there, still and unmoving, but Tony knew she was alive. She looked... peaceful. He sat back for a moment, just staring and thinking now on what exactly to do when a noise caught his attention from the far side of the lab.

"Jarvis, lights."

He squinted when the bright, almost blinding lights cut on in the shop; however, much to Tony Stark's surprise, he wasn't alone. A tall, african american man stood on the other side of the table from him, peering down at him sternly with his arms folded across his deep, barreled chest. Fury had seen better days, it seemed. A dark bruise bloomed on the man's forehead, and a thin trickle of blood trailed down his chin from where something or someone had split his lip. He glared at the bleary eyed Tony.

"Mr. Stark, did it ever occur to you that, if you're to be a superhero, you should, perhaps, answer your calls from time to time or keep up with your appointment schedule?" Nick Fury inquired mockingly. He glanced to the broken bottle at Tony's feet that he hadn't had a chance to clean from the night before. "Or, perhaps, lay off the liquor?"

Tony smirked. "Nope, the thought hadn't occurred to me." He stretched out his muscles, which had gone sore a long time ago from sleeping over his work again, flinching slightly at the dull ache that still lingered in his side. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your breaking and entering?"

"I wouldn't have had to resort to breaking and entering if you had just seen me yesterday afternoon as was scheduled and got what I needed out of your SETEC labs," Fury replied with a casual annoyance.

"That wasn't really an answer."

The director of S.H.I.E.L.D. huffed in disdain. "I had needed to appropriate something from that particular building." He toyed with a spark plug from the long forgotten hot rod engine. "Fortunately, I managed to acquire it anyway."

"And blow up one of my labs," Stark pointed out sharply.

Fury gave a tired smile, like he'd been running all night and fighting thousands of nameless enemies. "I didn't blow up your lab."

"Well, who did?"

"If you hadn't canceled our meeting, you would already know." The other man shrugged. "You have countless enemies right now, Mr. Stark, and for scores of reasons."

"Ah, a bitter ex?" Tony quipped.

"This isn't a game, Mr. Stark," Fury spoke calmly but fiercely. "Stark Industries was in possession of something both unique and highly inflammatory. I had tried to get in contact with you and to warn of you."

"Warn me of what?" Stark demanded.

"That several different factions were coming to try to take possession of it."

Tony's mind flashed back to the office that afternoon, to Nicholas Aurelius and to some unnamed item that the other man had been so dead set to reclaim for his company. He thought of the contract with Ares Industries and the provisos that Aurelius had made while blackmailing him and the strike team that had been waiting in the basement of the SETEC building. Stark could have kicked himself for folding so quickly to the rival industrialist who had obviously just been using him from the start, giving them plenty of opportunity to just waltz in and steal anything they wanted.

He frowned, the conversation replaying in his head; his hope rose for a moment. "You said 'was in possession of.' Was it destroyed?"

"No," Fury admitted.

"What is it? Where is it?" Tony demanded.

The other man nodded to the couch on the other side of the shop, buried behind a set of metallic shelves loaded with books, wires, supplies, and raw material. The couch had been Pepper's idea years ago. Stark had always been one of those people who would just fall asleep at their projects, working until exhaustion took hold, long before Afghanistan. His father had been the same way. Pepper had gotten annoyed after constantly finding him slumped over his work desk and had the thing ordered with Stark's credit card and delivered right to his shop. Tony never used the thing except to occasionally throw boxes and parts on after a FedEx delivery to the house. The only time people had actually sat on it was one night, shortly before his ill-fated trip to Afghanistan, when Pepper and Obadiah had gone down to the shop to go over a few last minute details about the Jericho presentation.

However, now, for once, it was occupied by something, or someone. Stark stood slowly and approached with caution, letting out a sigh of relief when he got closer. It was just a boy. Nothing more, nothing less. The child couldn't have been older than 16 or 17, judging by the looks of him. He had pale skin like marble, as though he hadn't seen the sun in years. His hair was long and black, coming down to his shoulder, but someone had swept it up into a tight ponytail. He wore a simple pair of black jeans and a t-shirt that Tony recognized as having been liberated from his own clothes. A medical bracelet hung about the boy's slender wrist, but it bore only a bar code and no other information. The child slumbered there peacefully, so still that Tony almost thought him dead where it not for the tiny motions of his chest.

"I need you to keep an eye on the kid," Fury said from behind him.

"I'm a little busy at the moment." Tony shook his head, quickly adding, "Besides, I'm not exactly the father type."

"You don't have to be." Fury produced a small pouch from the inside of his jacket and pressed it into Tony's hands; it was jam packed with hypodermic syringes, a list marking several times of the day in six hour intervals, and vials of clear, unlabeled liquid. "Doses are marked along with a schedule inside." He gave a look to the boy. "Stay on the schedule and do not- DO NOT- deviate from it. We need to keep him unconscious as long as possible."

"What's this 'we?' And why?" Tony argued.

"I don't have time to explain anything, Mr. Stark. However, there is potentially a leak in S.H.I.E.L.D., and I'm not entirely certain who to trust."

The industrialist's gaze shifted to the boy who just lay there. "Why me?"

Fury let out a chortle of superiority. "Don't take it personally. You're not really S.H.I.E.L.D. yet. You were never made privy to any of the information that was leaked." Fury rubbed his chin with the back of his hand to wipe away some small bit of the blood. "I needed someone from the outside of the company but someone connected." The man raised an accusing eyebrow. "And a large portion of this mess is _your _responsibility anyway."

"Gee, thanks," Tony mocked. Fury spun on his heel to walk out, giving an odd wave over his shoulder, but the inventor called out. "Hey, wait a minute. What am I supposed to do with a kid?"

Nick gave a strange glance over his shoulder, almost plotting. "Just keep up with the dosing schedule, keep him unconscious, and keep him out of trouble. No problem for the great Ironman." He tapped his chin. "Oh, and Mr. Stark, I wouldn't put on your suit if I were you. Not for a while."

And, with that, Nick Fury just walked up the garage ramp and out of the house.

Tony sighed and returned to his work, still ignoring the shattered glass on the floor. He checked the dosing schedule and the time. 4:32. The next dose wasn't due until 7:00 am, and every six hours after that. Tony had plenty of time to just keep working. His head hurt again, and Tony dry swallowed two more of the white pills before returning his attention to the screen. He stared at the image of Kitten for some time, just watching her sleep.

"What in the hell did I get myself into?"

xxxx

_He awoke with a start, gasping for air. Something tickled at the back of his throat, choking him, running up to his nose. The man coughed and aggressively cleared his throat to try to force the foreign object free. A hand of his subconsciously moved to his face to rub the bleariness from his eyes, the fuzziness from his mind, and the aches from his face, and found something strange. A tiny, round tube came down from his nose, taped to the base of his nostril. Tony focused long enough and hard enough to grip the tube and pull it, feeling the nauseating sensation of having his insides drawn up and out of his own nose. Tony pressed on, ripping the thing and the tape from his face before casting it aside. _

_Tony looked across the room. There was a man standing not too far away, his back to the inventor. He gave a small glance in the mirror to Tony but continued shaving, ignoring the injured man._

_Tony coughed again, his throat dry and parched; Tony rolled to the side, blinking and studying the world around him in a desperate search. There, on a table by his side, rested a metal cup of water and a canteen. Tony reached for it, surprised by how weak and uncoordinated his motions were as he accidentally batted the cup to the floor with a clatter. _

_He tried to reach again, for the canteen this time, but it was too far away. Tony turned on his side to stretch for it, but something stopped him, jerking at the muscles on his chest. Tony furrowed his eyebrows, not quite lucid to understand. He rolled over slightly more, gritting his teeth as whatever it was tugged at his own skin, straining the flesh. His hands moved down to his chest, finding two hefty wires protruding from under the thick bandages. He curled his fingers around them._

_"I wouldn't do that if I were you," the shaving man called before Tony could rip the wires out, not bothering to turn and face the invalid._

_Tony's confusion grew as he flopped back onto the cot. His hands tore at the bandages across his chest, ripping at the material. As soon as the fabric had been parted enough, Tony looked down in abject horror to the crude metal thing sunk into his chest and the wires. _

_"What..."_

xxxx

"Sir?"

Jarvis's voice jolted Stark from his dreams with a start; the man shook off his disorientation. The inventor had fallen asleep long ago while watching the video feed, still reclining in his chair with his feet propped up on the desk. Tony sat up slowly, rubbing his face and checking the time. 6:27 AM. He must have dozed off after taking whatever pain meds it was Pepper and Rhodes had procured for him.

"What is it Jarvis?" He inquired sleepily, sparing a momentary glance to the still completely unconscious boy on the couch.

"The reserve power from the Mark III helm is showing less than 10 percent capacity remaining."

"How much longer?" Stark pressed.

"21 minutes and 18 seconds, sir."

"Damnit." He swore under his breath before regrouping.

He looked to the visual display from the Mark III helmet. Kitten slumbered on before him, still just as tranquil and innocent seeming as before. A cellular phone rang in the other room with the curiously appropriate ring tone of the Doors 'Light My Fire.' Someone answered it, speaking in deep tones for a few minutes. It was obvious they were trying to keep as quiet as possible, but even the muffled conversation penetrated what looked like a deep unconsciousness.

The girl stirred in her sleep, whispering, "Jonas."

A shadow appeared in the frame, leaning over her, and drawling in an all too easily recognized voice. "Wake up, dah-ling."

The man gave the girl a playful, light slap. "C'mon sleepyhead." The girl murmured something incoherent before breathing deeply and rubbing the bleariness from her eyes in an almost child like action; the man paused in thought. "You really overdid yourself last night, y'know that? You need to be more careful." He swallowed an obvious lump in his throat of concern. "You could get yourself killed doing shit like that, Kitten."

"Mh-hum," the girl muttered to the affirmative.

"Pull yourself together, girl. You can sleep when you're dead." The man affectionately mussed the girl's hair, in an almost fatherly gesture. "Let's go. Time to get paid."

The girl clamped her hand down on the helmet, curling up about it again protectively, but Stark had seen enough. He didn't need to see anymore, didn't have the time to. Without the Mark III suit in any functioning order, he'd have to get the helmet back the old fashioned way before this Kitten and her friend delivered the helmet right to the offices of their California affiliate, Mistuhama Industrial Technologies. Tony could have taken the Mark II suit, but he suddenly didn't trust any of his suits after that AI had invaded it, especially now that the man wondering if the lolita had been designed by Mistuhama to protect Kitten in her missions. He leapt up the stairs, taking two and three at a time, ignoring the protesting of his side to burst into the living and over to the kitchen, where Rhodes had returned to his desperate searching for something edible. As soon as he heard Tony coming, the man turned, surprised.

Tony swallowed hard. "We've got to go. Now." As Rhodes raised a hand to argue otherwise, Tony cut him off. "No questions. And, this time, _I'm _driving."

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: Thanks very much to everyone who's been replying. I hope you're enjoying this as much as I've been enjoying writing it. And I hope I haven't thrown enough randomness at you. I promise, there is a method to my madness, and I really think you might like where it's going and be a bit surprised... unless you play Shadowrun. Then you already might already be clued in to what's going on here. In which case... shhhhh!

Anywho, enjoy!


	7. Nightlife

**DUMPSHOCK - NIGHTLIFE**

The car jetted through the busy streets, threading through traffic with a practiced ease. Before Afghanistan, before building the Ironman exosuits, Tony had raced in his cars, rocketing at breakneck speeds. He'd been pulled over more times that he could count, and always for ridiculously excessive speeding violations. Once, he'd actually been doing well over TWICE the limit. Paris Hilton herself had once asked Tony at a big gala event how he managed to get away with it, but she was probably too drunk to remember the secret. See, the fortunate thing about having billions of dollars at his fingertips and having military friends with high ranks was that it was somehow very easy for all those tickets to just disappear. However, the thrill of bolting down the streets couldn't compare to rocketing through the sky in nothing more than a suit of armor, and Tony found his speeding habit generally vanished as a result.

Until now.

Cars and trucks honked as their drivers threw up middle fingers as the racy Mustand slipped between them. Tony felt the engine purr as he shifted gears and reached up to pull up onboard navigation, ignoring the angry drivers all around them on the bustling highways. All of his cars had- at one point- come with a version of OnStar, but Tony had ripped out the annoyance in a heartbeat, replacing it with his own interpretation and completely voiding any warranties on his 2008 red and black Shelby Mustang. He'd put in a much better screen in the dashboard, and equipped it with his own navigator for those few times the millionaire actually needed one.

"Javis, you with me?" Tony called, dipping the red car to the left in the narrow gap between two massive tractor trailers and into the next lane over.

"Always, sir."

Rhodes swore. "Damnit, Tony, you're going to get us killed!"

Tony ignored his friend stamping down on an nonexistent brake on the passenger side like a driver's ed parent. "A little help?"

Directions and a map appeared on the screen in the dashboard. It highlighted an exit, starring it. Tony glanced up just in time to see the exit to his right. The inventor's hands jerked the wheel to the right to duck in front of one of the tractor trailers before cutting across four lanes of traffic. Brakes squealed behind him as cars and trucks slammed to a halt. Drivers honked in both fear and rage, but Tony paid no attention to that, nor the protesting screams of his companion.

The Mustang bolted down the exit ramp and onto the surface streets in a part of town Tony had never been in. There were bars here and there, all seedy and dark, even in the dawn light. The buildings all looked somehow decrepit and old, as though they could just rot and crumble to nothingness in a heartbeat. Tony's gaze shifted between the road and the tracking onscreen of the Mark III helmet. He glanced in amazement, realizing just how far away from any actual Mitsuhama property they were heading as they drove into the "bad side of town."

"Tony... Tony!" Rhodes screaming finally cut through his concentration. "RED LIGHT, TONY!"

Tony glanced up to the red light and the cars suddenly crossing their path, too close to slip in between. The inventor stomped down on the brake, the Mustang skidding on the asphalt before coming to a jarring halt, just a foot over the line. Both he and Rhodes sat there, letting out twin phews of relief. Tony's eyes shot back to the navigation screen, to the smaller map pointing out both their location and the Mark III helmet. Not far away, and actually heading closer to them.

But, then, he noticed something awful; the time. 6:35 AM. He'd skimmed dangerously close to the first deadline for the kid in his basement that Nick Fury had been so perfectly clear about; Tony groaned to himself but immediately decided to stifle it. So what if he missed a dose? Fury had all but told the man it was a sedative, so the boy should be out of it for a while. Besides, Pepper was still there, and there was Jarvis. Nothing would or could happen in his home without Tony knowing about it between the two of them. He'd never signed on to babysit a teenager, and, now that he thought about it, the man didn't even know where the boy had come from or why Fury had been so adamant about hiding him. Tony felt a sinking pit in his stomach that he had been coerced into aiding and abetting in kidnapping and hostage taking. The millionaire came very quickly to the conclusion that Nick Fury could go right ahead and fuck himself for all Tony cared at that point. He had bigger fish to fry, especially as the red mark indicating the helmet drew within a half mile.

A familiar motorcycle engine purred on the wind. Rhodes turned to Tony as soon as he heard it. The black Ducati Hypermotard. Kitten and her male companion were most assuredly close to them, so very close, in fact. The black motorcycle shot through the traffic light before them, turning to the left and onto the same road as them. The big, gruff biker drove, with Kitten curled about his back, her arms snaked around his chest and her head resting on his shoulder like an exhausted toddler. They stared as the motorcycle rocketing down the street away from them.

_"Change, change, change." _Tony's eyes locked on the traffic signal as the thought raced through his mind, as if he could just will the light into switching back to green, and, to his surprise, it did. _"Hmm. Look's like my luck's turning around."_

"GO, GO!" Rhodes shouted, but Stark was already ahead of him.

The millionaire had jammed down the gas on the car instantly when the light changed, shifting gears with the precision of a Formula 1 driver and jetting through the intersection, after them. The Ducati shifted slightly, leaning to the right, and Tony immediately reacted before the motorcycle even turned, dropping the gears down and drifting the car into a hard 90 degree turn after the pair. Rhodes's hands shot up the ceiling and frame of the sports car to hold himself in his seat. The tires slipped on the road with a plume of smoke, but Tony shot the Mustang forward and after the speeding Ducati.

The driver of the Ducati was skilled, no doubt, but Tony was just as excellent of a driver. The millionaire gave good chase, keeping the racing motorcycle in his sight, thankful that he'd removed the electronic governor in the Mustang along with all his other little modifications. He'd need that if they really took off. The man knew both vehicles well. While both the motorcycle and the car had similar zero to sixty times, the Shelby Mustang, fortunately, topped off at 30 mph higher than the Ducati. However, the biker kept the surface streets, dancing between the other cars in a concert of motion, almost losing Stark a few times.

Both vehicles whipped about another corner, and Kitten finally glanced back, over her shoulder. Tony couldn't be certain, but he could have sworn he could read the girl's lips as she shouted at her driver. The biker nodded and whirled about a sharp corner, almost losing the Mustang tail. Tony swore; Kitten had made them. The man could have kicked himself for being so impulsive to follow so closely without even attempting to shadow the motorcycle. His instinctive need to understand, to know, had caused them some costly mistakes.

The Ducati tucked hard left, darting through a tiny alley, too small for the Mustang, but it was slowed by dumpsters and other debris. Tony stomped on the gas, cutting up one block before cutting across. Right as he turned left, the Ducati burst from alley right in front of them. Tony could have laughed at the look of shock, surprise, and utter annoyance on Kitten's pale face as she realized the inventor wouldn't make this easy on them at all.

The pair of vehicles darted through another hard right, onto a large, multilane highway with a grassy divider between the directions. Road cones cut down the lanes of traffic down to just two in that direction, and Tony had to slam on the brakes again to avoid nose plowing right into the garbage truck and a Nissan Sentra at the back of the traffic. Several lanes of traffic had been shut down, creating bumper to bumper traffic where the road bottlenecked there between huge, concrete K-rails. Rhodes swore this time as both men watched the Ducati slip between the stopped cars and through the traffic without much trouble.

"Sir, auxiliary power in the Mark III helmet will run out in approximately five minutes," Jarvis pointed out from the navigation display.

Rhodes punched the center console in frustration, but Tony was already one step ahead of him, again. He swung the Mustang hard around in a quick, neat 180 before gunning the acceleration again, cutting across the divider and down the road in the wrong direction. They didn't have the time to waste sitting there in traffic, and there was no way Tony would just allow a repeat Iron Monger mistake if he could possibly avoid it. They were so close now, even as Tony jerked the wheel to avoid crashing into an oncoming Honda.

"TONY!" Rhodes barked from his spot, before letting the adrenaline take hold as Tony swooped back and forth across the highway, narrowly avoiding the oncoming traffic. "Hoo-motherfucking-ah!"

The millionaire would have grinned from ear to ear at his friend if he weren't too focused both avoiding causing a massive collision at 85 mph while also scanning the construction zone. There seemed no end to the line of orange road cones and k-rails, offering no space to jump back in line and give chase of the Ducati back on that side of the road if they ever found the motorcycle again. There! He spotted the sporty, trim black motorcycle as it made a left hand turn through a break in the grassy divider and across the road before them. Tony drew in a hiss and held it as the Ducati passed but neither seemed to notice the commotion on the lanes they crossed. Kitten's head had turned in the other direction, and the driver just didn't look at him at all. The driver seemed too focused in his rear view mirrors on the stopped traffic, searching it for the rather obtrusive red Shelby Mustang.

"They think they lost us," Tony breathed, immediately dropping his foot from the accelerator and letting the Mustang slow down.

A delivery van turned right behind the Ducati, and Tony turned behind it, just skimming across the road. He lingered behind the van, checking the on board navigation again and again as they went. His hunch had been right. The Ducati slowed to relatively normal and sane speeds again compared to the breakneck dash to the construction trap. They drove up the road just a few car lengths ahead of Tony, never noticing him behind the big van, until the red blip vanished from the map on the small screen.

"Jarvis?"

The artificial intelligence replied quite succinctly. "The auxiliary power in the Mark III helmet has run out entirely, sir."

"Shit, they're turning right," Rhodes announced in a grunt.

Tony shook his head and continued down to the next block before turning right. It didn't matter. He'd learned his lesson about being so stubborn and impulsive. He turned up the next street to follow the Ducati from a distance, keeping an eye on them between buildings as the man gave steady chase well out of sight. They lingered a block or two away but well within catching range of the Ducati as the motorcycle snaked its way through the city before stopping just a block away. The man paused at a corner and searched for the Ducati, spying it stopped in a parking spot just up the street. Tony found the nearest parking spot that was just out of easy sight as Kitten and the man stepped off the motorcycle. The man's hand tightened the steering wheel and gear shift when the pair glanced up and down the street, obviously searching for the Mustang but not noticing it.

The girl and her companion considered the situation, as Kitten tensely rubbed her forearms. Tony's focus locked on her. The pair had been wearing the same clothes as the night before, but Kitten now had a big, cotton, khaki bag slung over her shoulder with a bulky mass in it. The Mark III helmet. That HAD to be it. Nothing else would cause that unusual of an oblong shape in a bag. Kitten patted it nervously for a moment before nodding to the big biker beside her. The two turned and went through a heavy, black door to a red, brick bar. The heavy, wooden sign overhead had been carved with old English writing labeling it as the "Ale & Wench."

Both Rhodes and Tony stared cautiously before getting out of the Mustang and locking it behind them. Tony noticed Rhodes reach to his side. The colonel had borrowed a white tank top and a scarlet short sleeved, button down shirt from his friend the night before, and his hand drifted under the dress shirt, obviously checking for his sidearm.

"You're not armed, are you, Tony?" his friend asked under his breath.

Tony gave a sly smirk. "I don't use guns."

"That wasn't what I was asking," Rhodes retorted, fixing his shirt, his attention snapping to the millionaire as he started to walk towards the bar. "Tony." He grabbed his friend by the arm. "Tony, don't do this."

"Do what?" Tony demanded, shrugging off Rhodes's hold. He gestured to the red brick facade of the Ale & Wench. "Stop them from handing over seriously dangerous and experimental weapons technology to Mitsuhama?"

Rhodes grew silent; he couldn't argue with that logic. Together, they went in. Tony had seen quite a few bars in the early morning hours, but nothing like this one. At 6:50 in the morning, most bars and clubs had been shut down entirely by local blue laws; the few people who remained in them were either regulars or employees. Either that, or there were just a few drunks who couldn't be roused at last call and needed help getting home, leaving the bars and clubs dead and barren seeming. However, the Ale & Wench seemed to be completely alive, throbbing and pulsing with life and energy at that hour in the morning. Music still pumped from the speakers, and people were still dancing on the floor and the bar in time with it, like the party never stopped at the Ale & Wench.

Even aside from that, the place looked unearthly unique. The Ale & Wench had been either built in an old, decrepit building, or dressed to look at such. Open ductwork ran overhead, painted black. Large, round stones covered pillars leading up to the ceiling, where pebbles had been painstakingly set and mortared there. There were ancient seeming stairs leading up to what Tony assumed had to be a VIP area judging by the bouncer. Along one wall, the bigger river stones were arranging in shelves in a small, arched inset. Dozens of white votive candles were carefully arranged there, still flickering and flaring; wax dripped down in huge, ancient waterfalls, like the candles had been burning there for decades. On the opposite side of the candlelit alcove stood a grand bar. The front had been hewn from massive pieces of lumber, carved with ornate scrolls below the lip. The bar wrapped around scarlet shelves, illuminated by red lights, each shelf filled with row after row of liquor. Everything gave the place a uniquely gothic yet trendy effect.

And, if it weren't weird enough at that, the female patrons only enhanced the strange ambiance. The girls were clad in black wear, each more elaborately costumed than the last. Some looked like they'd fallen straight from _The Matrix_ movies, complete with plastic bits in their hair and vinyl clothing in day glow colors. Others must have walked right out of an Anne Rice novel, with tight corsets and lace on top of everything. Fishnets, lingerie, swat vests. Some women even had long tresses of yarn hanging from their heads in place of hair! They swayed and danced elegantly to the music, the barely clothed women writhing about on hips that moved with impossible grace to the eerily haunting but sensual tune playing about them. Somehow, under all that, they oozed a feral kind of sexiness that screamed "black widow," like they were really only intended for men- or other women- who liked their sex with a liberal dose of danger.

A darkly sinful voice crooned for the dancers through the loud speakers. _"On candystripe legs, the spiderman comes, softly through the shadows of the evening sun."_

The few men that danced among them stood out worse than Stark and Rhodes. They wore business suits, button downed shirts, and even casual wear like the two newcomers, but they all looked like not a one of them belonged in this crowd, like they'd all paid their way for the exalted privilege to be in these aloof, powerful women's presence. In short, not a damned one of them belonged in the Ale & Wench bar, and most certainly not at that hour that seemed reserved just for these dancers who refused to just disappear with the dawn.

_"Stealing past the windows of the blissfully dead, looking for the victim shivering in bed," _the singer continued, sending a shiver down Rhodes's spine. _"Searching out fear in the gathering gloom and suddenly! A movement in the corner of the room!" _The singer sang in dark tones.

Tony's vision swept back and forth over the crowd. In one corner, a man sat on a plush, velvet couch in the corner, surrounded by females as though a king with his concubines. By the candles, a woman as light as marble and dressed only in a black neglige that barely covered her nibbled at the neck of a business man still in his suit. A hand coyly reached for Tony out of the darkness of the people about him, and he turned to find himself face to face with one of the sci-fi vixens dressed in uv responsive pink vinyl with matching dreadlocks and makeup that glowed with the blacklights overhead. She ran a hand suggestively up the inventor's chest and about his shirt collar, her intent clearly shown.

"Looking for a bit of fun?" she breathed into his ear with a husky voice.

A brothel, a real, underground brothel. Before Afghanistan, Tony would have dropped to his knees and thanked god almighty for such a gift, but he had come home a changed man, the thought turning his stomach slightly. In all the time he'd been back, the former playboy had tried to bring home woman after woman with the intent of bedding and discarding her like so many others before. However, the man could never bring himself to close escrow, between a fear of what they might say or think if he woke in the night screaming from nightmares of his time in the caves and the image of Pepper that haunted his thoughts and cravings. Tony always ended up sending them home long before anything could actually happen.

"I'm certain you and I could have a wonderful time together," she whispered, stroking down his back with long nails.

And Tony was certain of that, too. Without a doubt, for his body responded with a aching need to her teasing touches, so skillfully placed and timed. He drew in a deep breath, fighting the natural reaction that threatened to occur. It had been so very long since he'd been with a woman after being with one every night for much of his adult life.

_"And there is nothing I can do," _the song went on, tugging at Tony's mind like a warning of some kind. _"When I realize with fright, that the spiderman is having me for dinner tonight!"_

Her hands trailed down to his chest, palms flat on him, and a flicker of memory flashed in his mind. Dead. Dying. Cold. Kitten's eyes gazing up at him. His heart stopping in his chest as she stole the very life from him. Black void swallowing him whole. The thought startled Tony and instantly killed any desire building in him faster than an icy shower.

The millionaire abruptly took her hands from him and shook his head, "Sorry, love, looking for something a little... different tonight."

_"Quietly he laughs and shaking his head, creeps closer now, closer to the foot of the bed." _The song dimly registered in the back of Tony's mind as the woman pressed herself forward to him. _"And softer than shadow and quicker than flies, his arms are all around me and his tongue in my eyes."_

The millionaire shook his head again, curtly this time. The vixen pouted excessively, jutting out her full, lower lip. Still, she stalked off to search for her next John, waggling her shapely rear as she did. The futuristic dressed girl returned to dancing a slow, sensual dance not too far away, running her hands up and down her body and gazing at Tony longingly to reinforce the invitation; Rhodes's jaw almost dropped out of his head.

He leaned close to Stark. "Did I ever tell you... that I seriously hate you?"

"All the time," Tony replied.

_"'Be still be calm be quiet now my precious boy. Don't struggle like that or I will only love you more. For it's much too late to get away or turn on the light. The spiderman is having you for dinner tonight,'" _The song darkened somehow with ill intent.

The colonel nudged Tony and nodded in the direction of the bar. There, stood Kitten and her male companion. They exchanged a few words with the bartender for a moment, but neither of the two men could hear what was said over the droning voice, strumming guitar, and pulsing bass beat. The girl still looked weak and exhausted, but she put up a good front, smiling and joking, pretending to enjoy herself. However, Tony noticed how her hand lingered over the bag, never leaving the spot where it rested, obviously protecting the helmet from prying eyes. The bartender waved his hand to the side. Kitten's companion gave a curt nod of his head, putting his arm about the girl's waist and helping her to amble off. She had slept longer than Tony and walked away with less injuries, yet Kitten looked just as tired as she had right after the Maserati incident. She trudged away on weary legs from the bar with the biker, up the stairs and out of sight.

_"And I feel like I'm being eaten by a thousand million shivering furry holes, and I know that in the morning I will wake up in the shivering cold," _The male voice sang on, the darkness washing away only to be replaced by a sad longing.

Tony and Rhodes went to follow, but the bouncer, a burly giant of a man, stepped in front of the two newcomers, folding his arms across his chest. "You're not supposed to be here, now are you?"

Tony never missed a beat. "We're with Kitten."

It was an old gamble, but one he'd have to take. Name dropping was an ages old trick. In fact, Tony Stark had met several one-night stands after they'd snuck into his events by dropping his name to an unwary bouncer. This particular name drop worked like a charm, but not in the way Tony expected it to. The bouncer's face paled for a moment as a shadow passed over him, but the man forced a tight smile and gestured for Tony and Rhodes to pass.

As they went up the stairs to the door at the top, Tony caught the last lines to the song, suddenly filled with a deep dread. _"And the spiderman is always hungry..."_

But it was too late now, just like it had been too late for the spiderman's prey in the song. They'd come this far that Tony couldn't just turn away now. When they reached the top of the steps, the inventor shot a questioning glance to his friend, but Rhodes just nodded slowly. They opened the door and braced for either a disgusting orgy or a hail of bullets, and finding neither.

No, the reality was far more horrible, somehow. Atop the downstairs bar had been a secondary bar. While the one in the base of the Ale & Wench had been set dressed purely for the gothic effect, this bar had been designed with a slick and minimalist hand in crimson and black with stainless steel trimmings. The bar downstairs had been lit by the candles, blacklights, and several stage lights with red and purple gels, while this bar was dimly lit by just a few, white lamps here and there. There were a few large, comfortable looking leather chairs and plush booths to the side. Below them, Tony notice curiously how the "pebbles" that marked the ceiling hadn't really been pebbles. They had been some sort of one-way material that left the downstairs looking like an opaque black while it looked clear as glass underfoot in the bar upstairs. Downstairs throbbed with music, while there was only the dim sounds from below as a soundtrack to the upstairs bar. Below, brothel girls flooded the place and showed their wares, while here, there were only businessmen with elaborate Yakuza tattoos, evenly mixed about and talking in hushed whispers, all work and no play. Both men knew without having to be told that this was a powerful place, where lives were bought and sold, businesses built up and crushed on whim alone.

Two bouncers sat flanking the door at the top of the stairs, and one greeted the colonel with a slight bow of his head. "Mr. Johnson." He dipped his head to Tony. "Mr. Johnson." This man produced a lock box with two different locks and opened it to the men. "Any weapons, firearms, explosives, if you please."

Tony shot a knowing look to Rhodes; grudgingly, the colonel removed his pistol and placed it into the box, glaring as he said, "I expect this back."

"But of course, Mr. Johnson." The bouncer replied as his partner patted down both Tony and Rhodes. "We pride ourselves on our professionalism." He took a key from under the desk and his own key ring, locking both sets before handing the one key to Rhodes, replacing his keys, and putting away the box under the desk. "I am certain you'll be quite pleased with our security service."

"I'm sure," Rhodes replied, a clear threat evident in his tone.

The bouncer gestured for the two men to enter, and the pair made their way to the bar as coolly and casually as possible. The businessmen shot sharp glares at these newcomers, looking them up and down and sizing both Rhodes and Stark up as soon as the pair walked through the door. They'd stepped into a very strange and definitely dangerous underworld with a completely different set of rules. They were sheep here, surrounded by wolves.

Tony sat at the bar and ordered a scotch on the rocks while occasionally shooting looks over his shoulder; Rhodes pretended to be engrossed in trying to figure out what exactly he wanted. However, both were paying keen attention to the people around them, searching as unobtrusively as possible. Then, Tony caught a glimpse of pale flesh and the slender body belonging to Kitten in one of the booths. She sat with the biker, across from a pair of Asian looked businessmen in dark, well pressed and overly starched suits. Both her and her biker friend's back were to the bar, not noticing either of the men. Her head rested on the man's shoulder. Her knapsack sat on the table along with a few cocktails.

The booth behind Kitten and her friend opened up, and both Rhodes and Tony slide into it before anyone else could take it. Tony took the spot right behind Kitten and her companion. He sipped the scotch, listening in on the conversation now that they were close enough to hear.

"I trust the job went well?" one of the strangers asked.

Kitten sniffed bitterly before answering with a snarky question of her own. "Did you see the morning news?"

"But of course." the stranger responded. "We only required you to destroy the Resonance Project." Tony turned his head ever so slightly at that, but the businessman went on, "But you single handedly did in the entire building and even got away from the great 'Ironman.'" He clapped cupped hands once to her in a cold applause. "Very nicely done, indeed, Kitten-san."

"Thank you, Johnson-san," the girl replied, raising an eyebrow from Tony at the curious moniker and the use of honorifics.

_"Mitsuhama. It has to be," _Tony immediately realized.

"Did you have any other troubles?" the MCT man went on.

"Ares," she spat venomously. "They were waiting for me."

"And?"

Kitten's disdain vanished for her to gave a single, stifled laugh. "They're dead, and I'm not." Her voice went steady and cool again, professional and collected. "I've fulfilled my contract, Johnson-san."

"Ah, the matter of payment." The man feigned hurt as something was placed on the table behind Tony; Rhodes caught a glimpse of a black box the size of an envelope. "So professional, so serious, Kitten-san." He pressed the box across the table for the girl to gingerly open and study the stack of bills inside. "But, of course, that is why we hire you. We'll be in touch if we require your services again."

"And my other payment, Johnson-san?" A hope lingered in the girl's voice, almost fragile and easily broken sounding as she asked, "Where is Jonas?"

xxxx

Pepper Potts almost fell out of her chair when she tried to roll over. She jumped awake and back into her spot, feeling all sorts of kinks and cricks instantly flare up at her from sleeping so long in such an awkward position. The woman massaged her muscles, regretting having not just slept beside Tony instead of being so demure as to sleep in an arm chair.

"Tony..." She breathed his name as she glance to his bed, finding it unmade and utterly empty.

The woman gasped at first, but, when she saw the clock, Pepper immediately laughed out loud at herself for being so stupid to worry about her employer. 7:29 AM. Of course Tony wouldn't be in bed. No one could sleep for that long, especially someone who had been as plagued by insomnia as that man. Even if he had truly slept that long, eventually, bodily needs would have kicked in, and Tony would have been racing to the bathroom to relieve an aching bladder by that point. Pepper stretched out and lolled in the chair for a moment, confident that, right then, Tony was probably either in the bathroom, in the kitchen, or, in the most likely possibility, in the shop. The woman rose, fixed her shirt, and replaced a comforter back onto the bed from where it had mysteriously misplaced its self on the chair she'd been sleeping in, before venturing out into the quiet house.

"Tony?" The woman broke the eerie silence, only to receive no answer.

That wasn't odd. Not in the slightest. In fact, Tony _rarely_ answered when she called for him upstairs. Ever since his dramatic return from captivity, the man spent all of his waking hours and several sleeping hours in his garage and shop downstairs.

"Rhodey?"

Again, there came no answer, which wasn't odd at all, either. Rhodes more recent visits up until the last night had all been in regards to the Mark II suit. It seemed the colonel wanted in on the ridiculously suicidal action that Tony got himself into with his own Ironman stunts. She would often find the military man downstairs, hunched over schematics and plans or electronics with Tony, listening intently and hanging on every word of Tony's lectures no matter how asinine.

Pepper let her ponytail loose, smoothed her coppery hair, and retied it while she muttered, "I take it Mr. Stark and Colonel Rhodes are currently in the shop, Jarvis?"

_That_ was the odd part. Jarvis, who had been carefully programmed and crafted to be quite prompt and polite in his responses... didn't reply. There came no answer, not even a breath in the stillness of the mansion as Pepper held hers. Pepper shivered but ignored it as the woman strode down the steps beyond the waterfall fixture to the shop. She swiped her keycard and entered the dark room, the windows still opaque and blocking out the morning light.

"Tony? Rhodey?" Once again, no one answered her, and Pepper felt anger bubble up in her. "Tony, this isn't funny."

When her employer didn't burst out to frighten her, her heart nearly stopped with a terror worse than any fright Tony could have given her. Pepper had seen the shape Tony came home in the night before. She'd helped treat and bandage him. And she'd seen the dark void in his eyes that cried out horrors that only Tony had seen or experienced. Pepper trembled, her heart crying out to her employer and friend. Stark could have been injured worse than they thought, or his sutures could have ripped. A million horrible possibilities raced through the woman's mind.

_"What if that girl came back to finish-_"

Pepper wouldn't allow her mind to finish formulating the awful thought. She simply couldn't bring herself to think that Tony Stark had died in his own home without so much as a fight. Pepper wouldn't allow herself to think that he'd died while she did nothing but sleep through it. The thought threatened to consume her whole, and Pepper knew she needed to banish it to stay calm.

"Jarvis, windows." Again, the computer gave no response, so Pepper pressed. "Lights please, Jarvis."

Nothing happened at first. No lights, no windows. The room remained as dark as night, and as still as a tomb. Even Tony's robots and computers were unmoving and dead. The thought chilled Pepper's blood in her heart. She stumbled forward, sweeping her arms before her as her heart slammed in her ears. Pepper cursed the fear that took hold of her as she bumped into a desk and banged her knees hard. Tony could have been anywhere in the darkness, and the woman could miss him completely if she didn't get her wits about her and calm down.

Pepper leaned over the table, gripping the edge with white knuckles. _"I can do this. This isn't hard. I've been down here a million times before." _The woman steeled herself by the mere reminder of familiarity. _"The garage isn't really that big when you think about it._"

The woman chewed her lip as her nerves returned and, with a newly forged resolve, she stepped deeper into the dark of the shop. Pepper tread with careful steps, constantly running her hands along the furniture to get a frame of reference of her location in the shop and to avoid running into anything else. When she reached the last of the work tables without finding the man slumped over yet another project, Pepper turned to the black void that yawned to her left, towards the cars. She swallowed and took a hesitant step out, reluctant as her fingers slipped from the table.

Her hands moved about in the dark before brushing against something cool and metallic. Pepper explored the surface for a moment, studying it in the dark. Her fingers found different bolts and plates in familiar forms and shapes. The woman let out a sigh of relief, recognizing this to be one of the two exosuits standing before her in the darkness. Tony. It had to be him in that suit; he hadn't yet given permission to Rhodes to borrow the Mark II suit. His presence brought instantaneous relief to his personal assistant.

"Tony Stark, you are, without a doubt, the biggest asshole I've ever had the pleasure of working for," the woman scolded, knowing she would have to slap him later when he wasn't protected by armor.

The lights in the visor flickered to life.

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: Okay, so it's gotten a bit darker, and, as such, I'm upping the rating slightly as a precaution to keep in line with the standards set by and must warn that this may get gradually darker still. Shadowrun, for those of you who haven't played involves being mercenaries for hire in the near-future who will regularly engage in unsavory tasks in the name of the almighty dollar. The world of Shadowrun is not a pretty one, filled with drugs, gangs, prostitution, the mob, corporate espionage, assassination, etc. I have really want to explore what this world is going to do to someone with as lofty of vision as Tony Stark from the get-go as he gets sucked further and further into that world by his own stubbornness. So, for the few people out there reading this, I hope you will stick around and enjoy. However, if you're bothered by any of the things I've previously mentioned, you might want to duck out now while you've got a chance.

That disclaimer being said, song credits must go to the Cure's _"Lullaby" _(aka _"Spiderman"_). Really great, sinful sounding song that always gets at least one spin every night at your friendly, neighborhood goth/industrial club.


	8. Whispers in the Wired

**DUMPSHOCK - WHISPERS IN THE WIRED**

"Where is Jonas?"

The question shook Tony this time. That name again, Jonas. Kitten had been calling to him at SETEC, right after she'd heard the artificial intelligence in the Mark III helmet. The man thought back to the boy in his garage that Nick Fury had just dumped in his lap. A boy with no name that the agent mysteriously claimed to have recovered from the research and development building before it went down, claiming him to be something "both unique and highly inflammatory." The inventor suddenly felt so very used by Fury and utterly lost as to what to do now.

Fortunately, he didn't have to make that decision; it was made for him when the MCT man laughed haughtily. "Ah, Kitten-san, you never cease to amaze, do you know that?"

"So they tell me."

"You never miss a thing," the man added.

Even Rhodes could hear the smile in her voice. "Again, so they tell me." Her tone grew low and menacing. "We had a deal, Johnson-san."

There was an awful moment when the girl lowered her head slightly. Tony couldn't see it, but Rhodes could. The air seemed to condense and grow heavy around the girl, sweltering and smothering. The acrid odor of burnt tinder filled the air, along with a sort of ozone scent, like a lightning bolt ripped from the sky. Both the millionaire and the colonel held their breaths, waiting for something bad to happen right then and there. However, just as quickly as it descended, the sensation dissipated when the businessman let out another chuckle.

"I had no intention of breaking my part of our bargain." The MCT man sat back in his chair to sip his martini. "Our source has located evidence suggesting that your friend was taken from Stark Industries by none other than Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D."

_"Oh, fuck me sideways," _Tony thought with a mental groan.

Kitten ran her fingers through her hair in frustration, but her friend, the big biker, piped up in his drawl, "Goddamned S.H.I.E.L.D." He sniffed the air with a wolfish snarl. "Always sticking their fuckin' noses where they don't fuckin' belong."

The businessmen chuckled softly to themselves, but Kitten didn't find any humor or amusement in it at all. "Where'd Fury take him?"

Tony shrank low in his chair, but he had a bad feeling about all of this. He knew the voice of the businessman behind him; the inventor just couldn't place it. There was something about the casual ferocity to it and the subtle Japanese accent. Then again, there had been so many people Tony had met while completely hammered that escaped his recollection, as Yinsen had so clearly pointed out. His stomach twisted in a tight knot as a sinking suspicion settled over him, one that the inventor couldn't shake for as hard as he tried.

"I had thought you would not accept that as an answer, and my source was more than kind enough to provide some clues as to the whereabouts of your Jonas," the MCT man coolly responded; Rhodes saw the Asian's lips curl in almost demonic delight. "He suggested that the only person Fury would trust would be one with connections to both their boys' club and to Stark Industries, someone who would have everything to lose if their little secret ever hit the media." Stark slammed back what remained of his scotch, already knowing what would come next before the question met his ears. "What do you think, Stark-san?"

_"Shit, shit, shit."_

Both Kitten and her male companion whipped about in their seats to peer over the booth, completely shirking any semblance of manners. Tony raised his now empty scotch and tipped his head back to meet the girl's sharp gaze upside down over the chair back. The biker laughed to himself, slapping his hip almost comically, like it was one big, cosmic goddamned joke. Kitten, however, scowled shrewdly. Tony gave a mocking wave at the table behind him with his glass, letting the ice cubes rattle against one another. Now that he could get a better look at the other table, the millionaire recognized the men who had hired the mercenaries to destroy his research facilities.

"Don't you mean Mr. Johnson, Mr. Mitsuhama?" Tony quipped.

Taiga Mitsuhama. Founder of Mitsuhama Computer Technologies. Tony had most assuredly met the reedy, almost bird-like man once or twice before, at different conferences. Taiga shared his extreme passion for robotics and electronics, but the man held a decidedly negative opinion of Tony Stark's uncouth behavior. Their corporations were in direction competition with one another, and it had obviously bred bad blood in Taiga. Beside the CEO of Mitsuhama, sat his eighteen year old son, Toshiro, who had already been through the rigorous training to become his father's successor in the company. The pair were business and engineering geniuses, ranking up there with Tony Stark. Where Stark was the rockstar in America, Taiga and Toshiro were famous all over Japan.

The elder Mitsuhama tipped his nearly finished martini to Stark. "I believe we can drop such formalities and titles. Men such as ourselves are too easily recognized to hide behind the mask of a Johnson. I would have known you any day." He nodded to Kitten and her companion, for them to push in while gesturing with a wave for the bartender to bring another round. "Won't you join us for a drink, Stark-san?"

xxxx

Those metal encased arms reached up for Pepper Potts, and, for a moment, they seemed timid, moving with an awkward hesitance. Cold fingertips brushed her cheek tenderly, with a gentleness that betrayed the strength to the Mark II and Mark III exosuits that Pepper had seen up close and in the news. Her cheeks bloomed bright red at the physical contact she'd been so careful to avoid sharing with her employer, a known philanderer.

"Tony..." she whispered, the word but an husky exhalation mixed with both desire and the rejection the woman had trained herself so well to exercise. "No."

Pepper had never been expecting the gauntlets to grip down upon her upper arms and squeeze sharply inward with a crushing force. Her eyes went wide in horror as those blue lights in the eye slits turned crimson red. The Mark II helmet leaned in close to her face, so close that she felt odd not feeling its breath upon her face. She'd never noticed just how terribly frightening Tony had crafted the helm until its gaze bore down upon her so menacingly, appearing to even frown where lips would have been on a face.

"Tony..." Pepper breathed, feeling the gauntlets tighten their hold on her as they sent shooting pains up her arms. "Tony, you're hurting me."

He didn't say anything, just peering down at her. Tony had always been taller than her by a bit, but the exosuits just added to that height advantage. The man used that to full effect now, drawing her close, too close from comfort, so close the woman could hear the faint hum of electricity and machinery within the exosuit. The closeness only made him seem taller, much more imposing. Pepper instinctively jerked against his hold, trying to break free by finding no yield to his hold.

"Tony..." The PA felt her pulse race again as the words stuck in her throat. "Tony, stop it." The man didn't respond, pressing ever closer to her, his grip tightening until she nearly yelped. "Tony, you're scaring me." Pepper threw her weight back, tugging and wriggling desperately to no avail. "Tony." When he refused to speak or budge, Pepper glared. "Let me go now!"

He did, but not in any way she would have wanted. The man in his exosuit had seemingly immeasurable strength at his fingertips, while she had nothing but a wrinkled and mussed business suit from the day before. He flung her with little to no effort. There came a horrible moment of falling before Pepper's flying body crashed into one of the work stations, spilling all of the electronics and supplies right off the desk. Pepper landed in a jumbled heap along with bits and pieces of Tony's many projects. Her hands reached across the shadowed floor, searching for something, anything she could use as a weapon against Tony.

_"And a t-square is going to do anything against the great Ironman,"_ Pepper dimly concluded as she abandoned her effort.

What could she use against Tony? Nothing. In that suit, he was unstoppable. The only person who had ever really almost bested Tony Stark after he took on the alter-ego of Ironman had been Obadiah, and Stane had cheated. He'd paralyzed Tony and stolen the arc reactor, the only thing that kept the inventor alive. But, no, she couldn't even do that. The suits had been designed with a careful and skilled hand, concealing the arc reactor under a protective, locking layer about the chest. Pepper had only one slim chance, and that was to run and hide.

Footsteps thundered on the other side of the table. It was now or never. Pepper scrambled to her feet, galloping to the door that led upstairs and throwing herself at it, turning the handle fiercely. The door refused to open. Pepper's hand shot into her pocket, digging for the key card. The footsteps drew nearly, as a electric charging sound met her ears. Pepper jumped, and the contents of her pocket spilled to the floor. The woman threw herself at the pile of pens, her Blackberry, and other assorted items, shoving everything about in the dark in a blind quest for the keycard.

"JARVIS!" She screamed. "JARVIS, OPEN THE DOOR!"

Something banged behind her, and the woman couldn't stop herself from slamming her back up against the door. Pepper pressed deeply into the glass, trying desperately to disappear into it. Tony was almost upon her now. Only a desk separated the two of them, and, with a grizzly force, Tony batted that aside and into his precious hot rod.

"JARVIS, OPEN THE DOOR NOW!"

The computer didn't answer her. A hand shot out to her. Pepper tried to bolt, to run again, but two of Tony's robots appeared at her side, approaching with raised graspers snapping at her. The woman went to turn, to run in the other direction, but her feet slipping on the smooth floor. She would have tumbled to the ground, but Stark moved faster. He grabbed her neck and pressed down on her throat. Pepper gasped for air as the man tightened his hands upon her. Her hands clawed at the silver gloves, but they did not move, refusing to set her free. The gloomy helm drew close to her face again.

Pepper flinched. "Tony, please don't..."

"Don't what?" a stranger questioned from the darkness.

The woman tried to focus on the shadowy figure that approached slowly from behind the Mark II suit. A pale hand patted down on shoulder. A face slowly appeared from the dark, coming into focus before her. It was a boy, nothing more and nothing less, with long dark hair hanging in loose locks, framing his pointed and childish features.

"Where am I and how did I get here?" the boy questioned.

"Let me go," Pepper whispered.

"Ah..." the boy closed his eyes for a moment. "Miss Pepper Potts, amiright?" It came out as one word instead of three. "You work for Tony Stark, don't you?"

The PA gagged, sucking up as much of the cool air as possible to cry out at the top of her lungs, "JARVIS, HELP ME!"

The boy laughed right in her face. "Jarvis can't help you now."

xxxx

"Suppose I can't ask for a raincheck?"

Taiga smirked a devilish and knowing grin as he sipped the last of his drink. "Stark-san, I would assume you are aware of where you are?"

Rhodes glanced about to the tattoos, studying them quickly. From what he could see, they were all full body tattoos of extreme detail. Snarling white tigers leapt and snapped, while dragons curled and twisted. Mouths were open with pointed teeth, ready to strike and kill. It had always been rumored that Mitsuhama had extensive Yakuza connections, but it had never been so overtly proven until that moment. Surrounded by all those hand done Yakuza tattoos and the crests of different organizations within the crime syndicates, there could be no denying it.

The colonel did a quick mental assessment before piping up. "Yak bar." Toshiro looked surprised at the man's knowledge, but Taiga barely registered any emotion, even as Rhodes went on. "Principally Yamaguchi-gumi and Kodo-kai."

"Impressive." Tony gave his friend a small nod.

Drinks arrived at the Mitsuhama table, and Taiga again bade the two men to join their party with a polite wave of his hand. Kitten pressed tightly against her male companion as Tony slid into the booth beside her and over far enough for Rhodes to join as well. Her hand shot out to drag her knapsack will her as she slipped deeper into the booth. He felt the girl's every muscle tense and contract where their bodies brushed against one another.

"Stark-san, it is an honor to meet you again," Taiga said coolly, raising his martini glass. "Kanpai."

Everyone gathered drank, not a one of them would dare breach obvious social protocol. Taiga Mitsuhama was a snake, a venomous python, coiled and poised to strike. They were in his lair, surrounded by his kin. Even the mercenaries swallowed their pride along with a quick splash of their own drinks. A milky white shot for the girl and a dark amber liquor for the biker. Both hammered them back like champs. Tony and Rhodes cautiously stole small sips from their drinks, never taking their gaze from off of either of the Mitsuhamas.

"Mr. Mitsuhama," Tony's voice hung on the name, as if already knowing he couldn't really dole any blow here. "And a bunch of thugs... very cozy."

"Not thugs, Stark-san. Businessmen, just like you and I." Taiga set the martini glass back on the table, toying with the stem. "You and I design firearms, explosives, and missiles that kill thousands, in single blows in many cases." The man's gaze swept across the room and all the criminals about them. "We kill from a distance, while they have the opportunity to see death up close and personal."

Tony shook his head. "Don't you keep up with the news? I don't make weapons anymore." His hand absently tapped the wooden table. "I shut it down."

"But of course, I had heard your public announcements," Taiga replied. "However, you know as well as I that businessmen and politicians make public statements to hide their actual affairs behind." He gave a nod to the mercenaries beside Tony. "The business world is a rather fierce one these days, and it is so often that we are forced to turn to less than savory tactics in order to survive and thrive."

"Like resorting to sabotage?" Rhodes growled, turning his glass on the table.

The CEO's smile fell for but a moment. "Sabotage is such a terrible accusation." He leveled a stern gaze upon Tony. "I had preferred to think of it as _liberation_."

A dark thought crossed Tony's mind of the hospital gurney in the basement of SETEC and the boy Fury had brought to him. Obadiah and Nicholas Aurelius had most assuredly been up to something down there in the forgotten basements, and Taiga Mitsuhama knew. Obadiah had hidden it well from Tony all that time, but what was it? Only one way to find out...

"Yeah, liberating what? My back account of the millions it will take to repair that building?" Stark teased, finding an edge in his own words that he hadn't heard for months.

It was like a game to them, to all of them, Tony realized. They circled one another and squared off, searching for a killing blow in an elaborate dance of words and gestures. Each pressed for the misstep that would put the other off balance before striking a brutal blow of their own. It was a simple game, as old as time its self. Hit, but do not be struck yourself.

"Surely someone such as you should know all your little projects like Resonance" Taiga's nose scrunched at the word with a hint of disdain.

"I don't."

Kitten snarled in a hush intended only for her companion's ears, "Bullshit."

"I don't!" Tony barked at the girl.

"Stop lying," the girl shrieked in rage, drawing everyone's attention to the table. The biker reached to put a calming hand on her shoulder, but Kitten smacked it away, pointing an accusing finger right in Tony's face. "Of course you know, you murderer!" Her anger swelled, almost palpable in the tiny space between them. "How could you? How could you do it?" The girl growled under her breath. "How could you?"

Tony shook his head, holding his arms up in mock surrender. "For once in my life, I can honestly say I didn't do anything."

"Kitten-san," Taiga called, more of an order for her to stand down, really.

"Stop. Fucking. Lying." A faint speck of ash floated on the air between them, jerking with each breathy, punctuated word.

"Kitten-san!" Taiga dryly cracked the name and title like the quick snap of a whip before speaking in his soft, delicate tones again, smiling broadly and polite. "You will have to forgive me, Stark-san. As I am sure you can imagine, people like Kitten-san and Wedge-san tend to forget their place from time to time." The elder Mitsuhama nodded to himself. "But, then again, she is a truly rare commodity to have at beckon call, indeed."

Taiga said it in such a way to be perfectly clear in his threat towards the girl for her outburst, a stern warning that Kitten's place lie somewhere near the bottom of whatever totem pole she sat on. Stark felt all too aware of what Taiga implied; the fact that, where Mitsuhama and Stark were gods, she was just the hired help. Yet, Kitten held her head high in stubborn defiance, her finger still in Tony's face. The air thickened between them, as tension built between Stark, Mitsuhama, and Kitten, rising to a boiling point. It seemed this game of theirs was apparently to be conducted with diplomacy and stringent social rules. Just as equally, it seemed Kitten had no intention of playing by such rules, nor did her companion, Wedge.

Then, the tension snapped abruptly as Kitten stepped about to bow deeply to the Mitsuhamas and nod to Wedge. "We're ghost. You know how to reach me if you require anything, Johnson-san."

"But of course, Kitten-san," Taiga returned, raising his glass to her. "A pleasure as always."

The girl and her companion moved to push past Stark, but the man caught her by both the strap to her canvas knapsack and her wrist, leaning close to her ear. "Not so fast. I believe you have something that belongs to me."

"Take your fucking hand off of me." When he didn't, Kitten backhanded the man hard, much harder than he would have anticipated from a girl.

Tony only vaguely noticed Rhodes pushing past him to retrieve his firearm from the bouncers, holding tight to the knapsack to jerk her close to him. "Give it to me."

"Not on your life."

Kitten reared back before butting her head against Tony's, but the inventor kept his grip upon her. The upstairs bar erupted around them as chairs were flung out and bodies leapt to their feet. The entire Yakuza assembled jumped to attention, fists curled and muscles cracked threateningly. The bouncer who had just returned the colonel's personal firearm to him threw his entire, hulking weight into Rhodes, slamming him into the wall and almost down the steps, trying to knock the pistol from the colonel's grasp. Wedge threw himself in between the Mitsuhamas and the fight, letting the girl fight her own fight. Kitten swung a driving punch at Tony before stepping back neatly. Strike, but do not be struck. It was the law of the day in so many ways now.

She turned to look over shoulder to the burly biker who had become a human shield for the Mitsuhamas. "Wedge, get the Johnsons out of here!" Kitten let out a terrible cry of warning, "Anyone else who values their life should do the same!"

"You heard the lady," Wedge turned to the two businessmen. "After you."

Even the Yakuza made a hasty retreat, tail tucked firmly between their legs. Each and every one of them, like they all knew full well that something just awful was going to happen. Stark didn't blame them one bit. He'd seen just what Kitten was mentally capable of and the great lengths she would go through to keep her prize. The Yakuza moved with the sort of sadistic pride that could only come from that

Kitten leaned close to Tony as even the Yakuza abandoned her to the millionaire. "You know, you should be dead now." Her eyes flickered in the light as the shadows fled. "You're not supposed to be alive."

Tony whipped the girl hard around by her wrist and slamming her into the booth, pressing his weight upon her and tackling her, ignoring the dull ache in his side. "Yeah, I get that a lot."

The girl snarled, actually snarled! It came out a feral, wild sound, like an untamed creature trapped in a delicate child's body. Tony felt her flesh grow warm and flushed as the scent of tinder filled the air around him. The world flared and flashed in front of him with a blinding light. The air exploded in his face with a pop, sending Tony sprawling to the ground. His ears rang, worse than they had during the convoy attack. The world swam as noises sounded distant and watery. Kitten slumped to the floor, her back singed and bloody.

Tony's hand reached to rub his forehead, finding something sticky there and blinking as he looked down to his fingers and discovered blood. Not just blood from there. A deep, dark patch of crimson had seeped through his shirt at his side. Tony's fingertips brushed the stain, but his mind didn't understand. The wound had been stretched beyond its limit, and the sutures had ripped, one at a time.

"What..."

He didn't have any time to process it as Kitten staggered to her feet, swaying on weak legs, holding her forehead. She already held her free hand out, her eyes dazed but searching for Tony. The inventor took the disorientation in the girl to kick out with his foot, sweeping her legs out from under her. The confused and injured Kitten fell crashing to her knees.

A voice spoke from her lips, but it didn't seem hers as the lights flickered around them. It was an ancient sounding thing, deep and crooning, wise beyond measurable years. The words that rolled off her tongue were in an alien language to Tony, fluid and poetic, but the intent came clearly to him, especially as the air sizzled and snapped with a life of its own between them. The heat condensed before exploding out again, flames licking at the air. It stole the air from Tony's lungs with scorching ease.

It wasn't as strong as before, barely a little flash bang compared to the previous times, but it was more than enough to send Tony down again and slam Kitten back. Yet, the fires caught and raced out from Kitten, trickling over the floor and finding the bar and the hundreds of bottles of high proof liquor behind it. The inventor rolled away from one of the hot tongues as the flames cut across the floor to his side like liquid fire.

"Rhodey!"

However, Rhodes was having troubles in his own fight, it seemed. The first bouncer had done down the stairs rather easily with a well placed kick to the chest, throwing the burly man off balance. The rush of the exiting Yakuza had made it exceedingly difficult for him to return to his post. The second one, the the one that had been holding the pistol for Rhodes in the safety deposit box, that was the trickier one. He'd been seated firmly behind the desk, giving him leverage and some mild form of protection. Both the bouncer and colonel gripped the firearm with one hand and the other man, trying to drag one another over the desk to get a better, fighting chance. Finally, Rhodes threw his weight back, digging his heels into the front of the desk and hurling the bouncer to the ground. However, as he did, the second bouncer had returned, throwing his weight into Rhodes with the force of a freight train. The three rolled to the side, Rhodes still holding tight to the gun and trying to wrest it from the one bouncer, to twist it out of the man's hands, while the other bouncer decided to end the whole affair altogether by wrapping massive hands about the colonel's throat and squeeze the life out of him.

Tony was on his own as Kitten rose to her hands and knees, He shuffled back, scrambling away, but the girl moved with a terrible grace and speed. She crawled towards him on all fours, like a wild animal. His back bumped into the flaming bar as searing hot shards of glass from the broken bottles dug into his palms and alcohol stung at the tiny cuts. Kitten threw herself at him, pressing her hands against his chest again, feeling the muscles and the arc reactor under his shirt. Tony's hand scrambled to his side, running long fingers over the floor in search of a weapon or a tool. The girl had him cornered and severely outgunned somehow, it seemed, but Tony wasn't a quitter by nature.

Tiny, mercurial balls drifted across Rhodes's vision as the air still in him turned sour. His body ached, and his throat screamed for mercy. His lungs burnt from the lack of oxygen. It became more and more of an effort to keep his neck tight and to stay conscious. The bouncer beneath Rhodes grinned in macabre delight at the suffering as he wrestled the gun about. Rhodes clutched it firmly in his hand, still fighting as the muzzle slowly aimed at his forehead. The bouncer's finger skimmed over the hammer, cocking the gun with a hard click, before slipping down to the trigger. As he squeezed, Rhodes threw his weight to the side, the shot echoing in his ear as the bullet whizzed past and something warm and wet dribbled down onto his neck and back. Something very large and very heavy pitched over behind him, landing with a thump.

"You blackhearted coward. You don't deserve to be alive after what you did to all those people," Kitten sneered as she drew so very close to him, the smell of lightning and fever bursting in the space between them as her touch became electric upon his flesh. "But I can fix that. Oh, I can fix it."

Tony's hand curled about something familiar, hefty, and long necked. An unbroken bottle of Galliano. He swung it for all it was worth, and it shattered with a satisfying crunch of glass splintering and the trickle of yellow liquor spilling upon the floor. The girl flinched as the broken bottle slashed a long gash down the side of her face slumped forward slightly, her eyes shutting as she struggled to focus after the blow, but her hands clutched his shirt.

Kitten forced herself to kneel upright over Tonyand to stare him down despite the injury. "I don't know why you didn't die last night, but, rest assured, I won't make the same mistake twice."

Three familiar cracks erupted behind Tony's ears, the retort of a pistol. A spray of blood spurted from the girl's shoulder, splattered across his face. She reached up to press on the gunshot wound as her body slumped forward to the ground, gasping in surprise at the bullet the abrupt trauma, about as surprised as Stark. She crumpled to the ground, but immediately pushed herself back up, lunging towards Tony. The girl landed hard into him. To his horror, her fingernails dug into his side, clawing deep into the wound. Tony bucked underneath her and threw Kitten back and to the ground, her head striking with an awful thud. Her eyes rolled in the back of her head weakly as Rhodes rushed her and struck the side of her head with the butt of his pistol, knocking her cleanly unconscious. Kitten collapsed in a bloodied, bruised, and burnt heap before him.

Flames raced around them still, but Tony couldn't help but just stare in a daze at the girl sprawled out on the one-way floor in a puddle of her own blood and alcohol. The sickening smell of charred flesh and cinders hit Stark's nose, turning his stomach, but he refused to dwell on it, focusing instead on the more important thing. _She'd_ done it, somehow. _She'd_ made the air exploded between them. He felt the ache in his head from the concussion wave and _she_ had done it. Not a weapon. Not a bomb. Not a super powered exosuit powered by a miniature arc reactor. Just Kitten, a whelp of a girl. His mind reeled at the possibilities, at the variables, struggling to understand but coming up empty. It had just been Kitten It had _always_ just been Kitten. She wasn't a master demolitions expert; she just _was_.

Rhodes grabbed Tony's shoulder, giving it a hard shake. "Tony, c'mon. We've got to get out of here, now!"

The man finally snapped back to reality, glancing wildly about them. Flames engulfed the entire upstairs bar. Underneath them, the fire must have been visible on the main dance floor, as the girls and their Johns pushed and shoved one another in a shrieking stampede towards the door. The millionaire suddenly felt like he was back in the bottom of the SETEC building all over again. He got to his feet, too quickly as another suture split in his side with a quick snap.

"C'mon," Rhodes barked as another bottle on the bar burst into flames with a splash and shatter, jerking on Tony's arm.

However, Tony could not bring himself to just leave Kitten there. She looked so fragile and weak there on the floor. Beneath that rough exterior, the man could see she was just a girl. A killer and a brutal instrument of destruction, of course, but a teenager underneath that. Yes, she was an enemy, but Tony just couldn't find it in him to leave someone as young and defenseless as she to the fires, not matter what the girl had done to him. He bent down and took her by her slender wrist, dragging her limp body from the ground and scooping her up in his strong arms. Kitten's body seemed so utterly delicate and frail against his barreled chest.

"After you, Rhodey."

Together, they clambered down the stairs. Each step sent a wave of pain coursing through Tony's side, so much so that he found himself already wishing for another pair of those blessed white pills Pepper and Rhodes had procured for him earlier. A part of the man wanted so very badly to just drop Kitten and leave her there to die to save himself the suffering, but Tony wasn't that kind of man. And, to his eternal shame, she had the knowledge and answers he needed as per what private little war he'd stumbled into. No, the millionaire could not just let her slip away or die before giving him the information he needed.

Down in the main bar of the Ale & Wench, chaos ensued. The Mitsuhamas had been certain to make a quick and clean escape without drawing any attention to themselves or causing a panic. After the flames had started to peek their way between the panels of the two-way material, the illusion of the "pebbles" melted away to reveal the horrors of the conflagration upstairs. The girls had flown into a tizzy, running this way and that. They bumped harshly into Tony, Rhodes, and Kitten as the three started to make their hasty way to the exit, each slam of a body against them jostling and aggravating wounds.

As the sea of whores and their clients seemed to part, the exit came into sight with a sliver of glorious sunshine, the prettiest thing either man had seen in what little time they'd spent in the Ale & Wench. They burst out into the blinding sunlight, coughing and gulping down the sweet, cool, fresh air; Rhodes spun around to scan the streets, taking everything in with a keen exam. All the people from the club scattered and vanished, cockroaches returning to their holes. They were alone, for now, but the colonel knew that would not last for long as smoke started pouring out of the roof of the Ale & Wench.

"We should book it before cops show up."

Tony nodded weakly, unable to summon his trademarked wit and cynicism, and the two of them trudged back to the Mustang as quick as their feet could carry them. Kitten had gotten heavier somehow, or maybe it was his feet? Or, perhaps it was just that her lithe frame slipped in his arms where they were both slick with one another's blood. Tony couldn't entirely tell for certain, but it took so much effort to return to the car. Tony didn't even argue when Rhodes held out his hand, tossing his friend the keys with little regard.

The millionaire opened the door and let the unconscious Kitten slip from his grip and into the car. With a grunt of effort, Tony eased into the backseat beside her, his own body protesting the entire time. The inventor let his own body curl up, his arms wrapping about his side and gut instinctively again as Rhodes peeled the Mustang out of the spot and onto the road. Tony hazily noted just how much crimson now streaked the once pristine, ivory upholstery, wondering just how much it would cost to repair and just how pissed Pepper would be when she saw it. The thought alone brought a devilish smirk to Tony's face as Rhodes rocketed up an onramp to the highway.

"Where are we going?" Tony finally inquired.

Rhodes shook his head. "Anywhere but there."

The millionaire turned to the girl as her breaths turned raspy and faint. "We can't take her to the hospital or the cops," Tony rationalized logically. "She'll just break out and hurt someone."

"So what, pray tell, are you proposing we do with her?" Rhodes demanded, checking his blind spot before merging into the morning rush hour traffic.

The inventor paused, his lips pursing in thought; yet, before the answer could come to him, a cellphone rang shrilly with an annoying ring tone, echoing in the car. The "Dans Macabre." Tony recognized the tune clearly with its haunting melody. It came from Kitten. He glanced to Rhodes before shrugging his shoulders and gingerly reaching into one of the many pockets on her fatigues to locate the thing. To his extreme surprise, the number calling was a familiar one, one of the exceptionally few numbers that Tony knew by heart.

"It's Pepper," Stark announced flatly, partly to Rhodes and partly to himself.

"What?!"

The millionaire didn't answer; instead, he answered the call, holding the phone to his ear and listening as the caller greeted with a young, male voice. "Kitten?"

"She's a little under the gun at the moment, can I take a message?'" Tony mocked.

There was a pregnant moment of contemplation on the other end of the phone. "The famous Tony Stark, I presume?"

"Good guess."

The caller did not sound pleased. "Where is my Kitten?"

"She's safe enough," Tony responded curtly, finally relishing some small advantage in this whole, tangled and downright messy affair. "Jonas, I take it?"

"You would be correct." Another pause, followed by a sigh. "Where's Kitten?"

"She's here."

Jonas's voice strained in what could have been tension, fear, or rage. "Prove it. Let me talk to her; let me hear her voice."

Tony nodded, despite knowing that the boy could not see it. "Well, listen to me, Jonas. I've got Kitten, and she's a little banged up right now. So, if you ever want to see her alive again, you should probably start with answering some questions."

"I don't bargain with murderers."

The inventor flinched at the word, but only slightly so. "See, like that. Where did the two of you get that silly idea?"

"Just let her go."

Tony reached down to her and held the phone by her face, grinding his knuckles into her sternum vigorously to be rewarded with an involuntary, inward contraction of her muscles and a low moan. "Do I have you attention? Are you going to answer my questions now?"

The navigation screen in the center console popped up out of its spot on its own accord, and an image flashed on the screen. It was a hack job, done in real time, bypassing both the standard operating systems and Jarvis. The skill of the hacker had to be incredible to do something like that.

Both men's hearts skipped beats simultaneous as they saw what appeared on that screen. A woman. No. Not just any woman. Pepper. She stared at them with wide, red eyes through the screen, as thought she'd been crying. Her forehead bloomed with dark bruises already with a great lump, like she'd taken a bad blow. The woman sat on the white couch in Tony's spacious living room, her back to the ocean view. But that wasn't the part that horrified them so. It was what stood behind her. The Mark II suit. Its great, metal gauntlets held her head between them, the repulsors occasionally flaring with white light but not firing. Each rise of the energy sent Pepper's breaths racing to ragged pants and whimpers of horror as her entire body stiffened involuntarily, as though expecting her head to be blown clean off at any moment.

The whelp of a boy that Nick Fury had abandoned to Tony's care leaned in to the screen. "Do I have _your _attention now?"

Rhodes tried to focus desperately on the traffic about him while Tony swallowed the lump forming in his throat, forcing his vocal cords to work and produce a hoarse croak. "I'm listening."

"Good." He looked to Potts and put a finger to the woman's lips. "Shh, so we boys can chat." Jonas took a seat beside Pepper, ruffling his hair and folding his arms across his chest. "I really, really wish you hadn't have done that, Mr. Stark. We could have done this nice and easy without any fuss."

"We still can," Tony offered. "Just give me Pepper and the answers I want."

"I don't think you understand, Mr. Stark." He looked to the trembling woman at his side. "Sorry, Miss Potts." Jonas returned his gaze to the men through the hacked link to the Mustang. "This woman means two things to me. Jack and shit. I have absolutely no emotional investment in her, Stark. I could easily let this little toy of yours kill her." As if to illustrate the point, those hands squeezed on her head, eliciting both a quick hiss and a twisted grimace of pain from Potts before Jonas gave a wave and the pressure subsided. "But, ask yourself, why did you devote such a large portion of your energy and your personal server to discovering her identity? Kitten is _just_ as important to both me as she is to you. So, what to do?" Jonas beamed like a kid oblivious to the threats and negotiations he issued. "Seems like a no-brainer if you ask me."

The millionaire gripped the edge of the back with white knuckles as he nodded slowly in careful but grudging concession. "What do you want?"

Jonas smiled a thin smile. "Bring Kitten back to your home. No cops. Just you and your driving company-" the boy closed his eyes, before grinning wider. "-Colonel James Rhodes. No one else. No back up. Nothing. We'll trade."

"Alright," the words were difficult to form as he stared at the obviously terrified Pepper.

"Come now. No side trips or detours." Jonas gave a knowing smirk. "I'll know."

"Deal."

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: Sorry, this chappie took me a little longer to get right. I just started college again this week for my second degree, and pre-calc homework was eating up a ton of my time and precious, tasty brains. It's not quite what I would like it to be, but it gets the job done, y'know.


	9. Warchalk

**DUMPSHOCK - WARCHALK**

Tony Stark had never been afraid to enter his own home in his entire life.

The current Stark estate resembled nothing anywhere near the original Stark family home. The home had originally been an overly lavish thing with ornate, rococo detailing, massive wood ornaments, tapestries, and grand halls. It had been constructed in a building rush shortly following the completion of San Simeon, long before the Stark empire formed. When the wars in Korea and Vietnam sent both profits and share values skyrocketing, Howard Stark had purchased the castle-like abode as an engagement present for his wife. While a few of the rooms had deeply frightened Tony as a young child, including his father's den that had been festooned with what had seemed like hundreds of taxidermy animal heads, the home had pulsed with life and energy, the warmth and love of family. Tony had dearly loved that old castle over the sea, except for that offending den, of course.

The day of his parents funeral, however, all that changed. It had been raining that day, and, even after all those years, Tony still found it somehow tragically comical that it always seemed to rain for funerals. He went home feeling dead and cold between the damp chill on the air and the grief in his heart. He wandered for a wall through the long, lonely, and quiet halls, listening to nothing but the sound of his own breaths echoing in the dark and the dull pattering of rain upon the roof. He couldn't go home anymore without his parents, his family there. Not to that house. It wasn't his _home_ anymore without his parents. After a sleepless night spent contemplating his options and sketching out a curved, elegantly flowing design, Tony Stark ordered the house and English style gardens promptly demolished. A few weeks later, the skeleton of his new, modern home began to take shape hanging over the ocean cliff.

The new house with its white, swelling and bowing roof had been touted in several architectural, design, and science magazines as "simply one of the most incredible homes on the planet." They heralded the home as the "House of the Future," praising the young Tony for design insight far beyond his years. Those periodicals would list statistics about the square footage, the amenities, and awards it had garnered over the years. Many of the women who had the distinct pleasure of seeing the home from the inside claimed it to be "the coolest house they'd ever been in." They would claim the view to be absolutely gorgeous. All that never mattered; it only mattered to Tony that he could go _home_. Not to a house or castle, but to his home. Jarvis always waited up for him, and there was always tons of new projects to work on in the shop downstairs.

However, now, Tony's stomach churned as Rhodes carefully let the Mustang creep up the driveway towards the front door as opposed to down to the garage like always. Both studied the house with keen eyes, scanning for any signs of life, weapons, or a struggle, for anything out of the ordinary, but finding nothing. Rhodes parked the car before the door but didn't cut the engine. Instead, the pair sat there in the idling Mustang.

"We need a plan," Tony finally breathed, still staring at his own, suddenly imposing home atop the cliff.

"Yup," Rhodes agreed with little emotion.

"They have the Mark II."

The colonel ignored the blatant redundancy of Tony's assertion and nodded in contemplation of their situation and all the variables encircling them. Of course it had to be "they." None of the Ironman exosuits could operate themselves of their own volition. Nor would Pepper Potts, that all too feisty of a woman who had stood up to even the Iron Monger for Stark, allow herself to be captured so easily. There had to be two of them at the very least, allowing for someone to drive the Mark II suit while Jonas was preoccupied with hacking a live link directly to the Mustang. How these intruders managed to get power into the Mark II suit and the knowledge to actually operate it, Tony couldn't tell, but he'd be certain to remedy that as soon as this was all over.

"You go through the front, I'll take the basement?" Tony offered, his eyes locked on the front door, raising an eyebrow cockily as the plan formed in his mind, taking the knapsack from Kitten's prone form.

Rhodes scratched his chin. "He'll know you're coming."

"I know." Tony flashed a wicked grin, slinging the stained, canvas bag over his own shoulder and patting it reassuringly. "But you'll have Kitten."

Finally, Rhodes reached down for his sidearm, checking the thing carefully before looking to his friend. "You up for this?"

Tony's skin had blanched a sickly pallor over the ride back to the house, although, admittedly, not as gray as Kitten's had. He'd managed to stem some of the bleeding by taking his button down shirt off and lashing it across his abdomen and black tank with his belt in a makeshift pressure bandage, while leaving the girl to bleed. The two looked near warmed over to death, but the millionaire was at least conscious and talking lucidly. Kitten hadn't moved a muscle. Yet, the thought of Pepper in there, at the mercy of these... these animals... the very thought steeled Tony and renewed the strength that had been sapped by his wounds and the fight with Kitten.

"Yeah."

The colonel slipped out of the car as Tony grabbed the girl by her pale wrist, slinging it over his shoulder to drag her from the car. Kitten groaned from the movement, but it wasn't a conscious sound. She dangled heavily by his hold, dead weight and not an ounce of superfluous flesh upon her. Tony almost stumbled back and dropped her, but the man forced himself to bear it. He clambered back just as Rhodes appeared at Kitten's other side to shoulder her weight. Tony let his friend take her, letting her slip from his hold and into the colonel's arms. Rhodes scooped the pale, frail girl up and cradled her to his chest.

Rhodes shot his friend a solemn look before turning to the door. "Be careful."

"Yeah..." Tony frowned at the gravity of the situation. "You too, Rhodey."

Rhodes waited for a moment to watch his friend shamble away, back down the driveway towards the road. Yes, it was a shamble, the unsteady gait of a man who had been seriously beaten and thrashed. Yet it was proud and sure, every step determined and set up until he ducked behind lush, well tended foliage that obscured the front of the estate from the road for privacy and disappearing into the greenery. He trusted Stark, even if Tony hadn't clued him in to whatever- if any- plan he had in mind.

Then, Rhodes held his breath and went into the house through the front door.

xxxx

"Ah, company's here," Jonas cried out, clapping his hands in glee and jumping off the couch without even having to look to the computer monitors and CCTV to know.

"He's not going to just give her to you." Pepper Potts sneered the words venomously. "He won't," Pepper repeated firmly, her eyes following Jonas as he walked back and forth across her field of vision as far as the pressing, armored gauntlets would allow. "He'd rather see me die than surrender or give in to anyone." Pepper knew it was true, even before the thought crossed her mind; Tony was that bull headed, in her expert opinion of the inventor. "How would you like that?" She spat the questions. "Having blood on your hands?"

Jonas shrugged and sighed heavily, a tired sort of chuckle before stalking off to the kitchen. "Y'know, what? It wasn't an empty threat. I _really_ don't care if you die or not. All that matters is Kitten."

"You can't mean that," the woman breathed. "You don't..."

"Oh, but I can and do."

xxxx

A little known fact about the new Stark mansion was that a few, limited portions of the old mansion remained in faint traces below the house when one looked closely enough, including a small servant's passage between the former pool house and the main house. A narrow, dank tunnel had run underground, about the opulent, marbled and tiled pool, and back to the main house, right beneath the kitchen. The greco-roman, completely San Simeon inspired pool house had been destroyed to make way for the new home, but the passage way remained. The entire tunnel had been carved into the stone and lined with sturdy, concrete, intended to withstand the test of time as well as serve as a fallout shelter in the event of the Cold War turning atomic. Tony kept the structure there to anchor the new home to the cliff face in the event of a mud slide, taking advantage of the natural strength of the rock in the passageway.

As a child of only five or six, he'd loved the tunnel. His mother often scolded him for racing up and down the passage to pop up in the kitchen from the pool house and frighten the living daylights out of the cook. She had been quite a claustrophobic woman, and Tony had been a rather head strong boy. He would giggle and shriek in delight, darting up and down the steps and driving her to hysterics at the thought of having to go down there to get her son so she could punish him. After their deaths and the home towered over its hollow anchor, Tony had the thing sealed.

Tony smirked as he crossed the gardens in the front of the home. After his crash landing through the roof, grand piano, floor, and prized piece of his car collection, the millionaire rethought the servant's passage, recalling exactly where it ran from the front of the property to the back. The inventor changed his mind about the narrow pass, reopening the fore end of the tunnel and extending it to his liking under the house. Where there had once been a kitchen, there now stood a grove of thick, towering, ornamental grasses, swaying in the breeze over his head. Tony brushed past them and ducked down in the middle of the groove to kneel down before the steel entrance that had once opened like a coal shoot in the kitchen of the main home to the original Stark Estate.

The millionaire reached into his pocket and pulled out a rather unique key. This was no ordinary key. He'd taken his time to craft a truly one of a kind barrel key, with a long, tube lined with grooves to manipulate the tumblers to the lock in the center of the steel door. Tony only made one copy of the key, taking his precious time to ensure he got a perfect match. He'd never used it yet, only intending for the passage to be for him anyway, just in case he needed to slip into or out of the house after some Ironman related troubles. This seemed the perfect opportunity to employ the passage. Tony turned the lock, opened the steel door and eased down into the darkness before letting the door slip closed behind him.

The darkness felt secure and safe. He knew this place well from having traversed it so many times in his childhood pranks. Plus, Tony had been sure to make some minor adjustments to the tunnel, including lining it with EMF shielding and installing both a backup generator and server, just in case he needed to preserve both Jarvis and the programming for his suits in the event that all out hell broke loose.

"Jarvis, you there?"

The artificial intelligence that controlled the home replied instantly in a flat tone, echoing in the dark from speakers sunk into the ceiling. "For you, sir, always."

"Lights."

Small, red lights inset into the floor and lining either side of the tunnel came to life, slowly brightening to illuminate the hall. The red held a awful psychological impact, scarlet like the blood trickling down his side that oozed black in the dim light. However, Tony had not designed the lighting system for mood or effect. He wanted to ensure that his night vision would not be ruined if he needed to bolt quickly.

"What's the situation inside?" He grunted the words, feeling mildly sapped of strength as he leaned against the wall, sweating profusely.

Jarvis processed for a moment before responding, "I am unable to connect to diagnostics or surveillance of the house."

Tony swore under his breath hotly. The millionaire had been hoping to get upstairs, subdue the intruders, and get Jarvis to lock them inside while he, Rhodes, and Pepper contacted the authorities, whichever authorities were to be called in a situation like that. This complicated things, but nothing could be done about that now. He had to be thankful for the fact that Jarvis's programming remained intact and protected there in the dark from the hacker. Tony had a bad feeling he would need Jarvis later, after all this was over.

"Is the other side clear?" The inventor inquired.

"There are no life signs in the garage."

Tony took that as a yes and started on his way up to the garage. "Jarvis, can you access the Mark III suit from here?"

"Yes, sir," the computer responded succinctly.

"Prep for suiting up," Tony ordered.

"Yes, sir."

xxxx

The power seemed to have been cut. The lights were out and much of the windows were to the west side of the home, leaving the inside dim in the morning light. Rhodes had been in that house for so often, he hadn't noticed just how many motors and electronics Tony had surrounded himself with in the new home. The machines and robots had always hummed about him slightly, lulling him into a sense of security. When Tony worked, he played music so loud it could often be heard through the entire home. Now, the house stood silent, a well-designed tomb; the eerie quiet made the men's skin crawl.

A quick scan of the living room revealed Pepper to them. She stood now, her back against the cold, gleaming metal of the Mark II suit. Those gauntlets continued to press into the sides of her head, pulsating with a white glow. Rhodes's heart broke to see her there, hyperventilating every time the lights by her ears got too bright and the repulsors grew too loud.

"Pepper..." he breathed, almost letting Kitten tumble right to the ground.

The woman shivered, her eyes jolting back and forth between something unseen in the kitchen and the colonel before her. "Jim... " She swallowed hard, forcing herself to say something to break the silence. "Tony?"

Rhodes refused any hint of emotion or fear, truly a grim soldier underneath his teasing jokes with Tony and his polished suit. "He's on his way."

"Kitten?"

It was Jonas. His voice timidly broke the quiet as he slowly stalked from the kitchen. His eyes went wide as soon as he spotted the girl there, limply draping over the man's arms. The boy's jaw dropped in horror and repulsion at the burnt, bruised, and bleeding mercenary the colonel had brought before him.

"KITTEN!"

The boy took a step forward, but Rhodes moved quickly, his muscles already primed for action. The colonel was a flurry motion so fast Pepper could hardly see it. His hand slipped out from under Kitten's legs, letting her drop for but a millisecond to readjust his hold on her. Rhodes threw an arm about her neck to support her weight as his right had brought the muzzle of the firearm and dug it into her neck. Jonas stopped dead in his tracks.

"Stay back," Rhodes growled bitterly.

The boy did, but his lips cracked a fierce, maniacal smile. The Mark II suit moved of its own according, bearing down upon Pepper with a crushing grip. Those white lights in the gauntlets of the armor whined as they charged, glowing hotly at her ears. However, unlike before, they did not dim as a threat alone. They remained charged, the light quivering from the heat.

"I think you've forgotten that I've got something dear to you," Jonas threatened through a macabre grin before bristling. "Where's your friend?"

xxxx

"Jarvis, how we doing?"

The mechanical voice broke the darkness of the metal encasing. "Secondary systems online only. Primary functions holding for your command."

"Anything noticed us yet?" The man inquired.

"No outside network influence."

Tony nodded in the deep void of the helm, reassured by the thought that maybe, just maybe, he still had the element of surprise to him if he worked quickly. "Jarvis?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Sit this one out for me, will you?" The inventor requested solemnly.

"Sir?" Jarvis questioned.

Tony closed his eyes, feeling a small air of sentimentality rising in him and tugging at the back of his mind. He'd never been a nostalgic person before. Who needed pictures and mementos? They were distracting, cluttering, and emotionally cumbersome, all elements to life that Tony could certainly stand to live without. After the prototype mini arc reactor Pepper had lovingly preserved for him saved the man's life, Tony swallowed his pride and admitted, grudgingly so, that a small measure of sentiment wasn't such a terribly awful thing so long as it was kept in careful check.

Jarvis was important to Tony. Not only did he serve to run the basic functions of the home, maintain the servers, monitor the grounds, and process raw data from the Ironman suits, but he often double as a sounding board for some of Tony's wilder ideas. The basic concept of Jarvis's operating system struck Tony in his sleep one night, waking him like a lightning bolt. He worked tirelessly for days, poring over endless lines of coding until he passed out over his own keyboard. When Tony woke, Jarvis spoke first, announcing preliminary performance diagnostics before its creator could even ask. It had been a fantastic accomplishment. Jarvis was a technical masterpiece, a true symphony despite anything Obadiah Stane had said about the miniature arc reactor or the exosuits, a precise balance of perfectly scripted lines and variables, some of which Tony did not even recall writing.

"Remain active on the back-up server only." Tony paused before clarifying, "These guys are professional hackers and corporate spies. If they wipe your circuits, I'll never be able to make a duplicate of you."

The computer would have sounded touched and, perhaps, relieved if it had any sense of emotions as it said, "Thank you, sir."

The inventor distantly wondered if, perhaps, there was an emotion there.

xxxx

"Let Pepper go."

The words came as a stern order, curt and fraught with an authority Pepper Potts had never heard from James Rhodes ever, except for when the colonel's blood boiled at Tony for his drunken or otherwise flakey actions. Aside from their business affairs, Pepper had always found it difficult to associate the man she knew to be James Rhodes with the military rank she knew he held and had earned. The woman had always known in the back of her mind that Rhodes had to be a quite capable soldier to earn such a rank, but she'd never seen that in her friend. She'd only ever known Rhodes to be sweet, occasionally funny and teasing, never this brusque and stolid.

Kitten's color continued to fade even as Rhodes held her up off the ground by her throat. Sweat beading her forehead, and she drew faint, rasping breaths. Jonas hunched his head slightly, focusing intently on the girl and the colonel who held her hostage. However, the woman caught the faint sprinkling of concern in the boy's features and expression.

Jonas's voice went raw and harsh. "What did you do to her?"

"_She_ attacked _us_," Rhodes corrected, flicking the safety off on his personal sidearm coldly, impassively, still aiming it at the ceiling through Kitten's skull. "Now give me Pepper."

"Do it, kid."

Jonas whipped about to the sound of a mechanical voice just in time to see the red and gold Ironman striding up the steps to from the basement. Pepper's heart fluttered in her chest, even as the grim crimson and yellow helm turned to her, a metallic scowl firmly planted upon its face. Her relief was short lived however, as the Mark II suit merely swiveled her about to face both Rhodes and the infamous Mark III Ironman suit approaching slowly, stalking with cautious, calculated steps. Jonas had no intentions of backing down easily.

"Let Kitten go first," the boy growled as the hold on Pepper's head tightened harshly and mercilessly.

Tony balled his armored hands into clenched fists. "You let Pepper go first."

Pepper could have rolled her eyes in annoyance if it were not for the fear that gripped her heart and the cold steel that held her head. They were two stubborn, bickering children. Both Tony and Jonas. The two could and would probably just go back and forth for hours until she died of plain boredom. Pepper had known Tony for years, well enough to know he never gave an inch, and her short time with Jonas had taught her the same of him.

She blurted it out before anyone dared silence her. "Oh, just do it at the same time."

The three men all jerked their heads to the woman as she glared hotly to them, dumbstruck by the sheer audacity and pure brilliance of her statement. Inside the secure and concealing darkness of his helm, Tony swallowed and nodded slowly. Jonas's gaze shifted back and forth between the two hostages in consideration for a tense moment before he gave his own, curt nod of approval.

"On three."

The practically trademarked Stark sarcasm reared its ugly head in an uncontrollable moment of childish word vomit. "On three or after three?" Jonas cocked his head to one side, but no one said a word until Tony shrugged. "On three, then. One..."

Jonas counted the next number, his hands stretching and twitching as though itching for a gun fight at the OK Corral. "Two."

"Three!"

As soon as the syllable left his lips, Rhodes flung Kitten away from him, allowing her limp body to collapse on the ground before him as the strange assembly of enemies and friends burst into motion. At the very same time, the Mark II suit released its crushing hold of Pepper's head, and the woman leapt at her newfound freedom. She threw herself at the colonel, launching herself into his arms instinctively, almost tackling him to the ground. The gun almost slipped from his grasp, but Rhodes just tightened his hold over it. Jonas scrambled for Kitten, holding her on the floor like a child, crooning to her in soft tones.

Soothing sounds of reassurance and comfort issued forth from both Rhodes and Jonas for a moment. Rhodes just rubbed Pepper's back, feeling her almost melt into his embrace, shaking terribly as she did. Her heart fluttered against his chest faintly, feeling not much unlike a hummingbird clutched close, frantically beating its wings. Her arms encircled him, squeezing tightly as if for dear life, and she buried her head in his shoulder. Her fingernails dug into him through his shirt as the woman clung to him. And Jonas? Jonas cradled the pale and deathly still Kitten in his arms, whispering soft prayers into her ears as the boy gently rocked the battered girl and tapped her cheek tenderly in an entirely unsuccessful attempt to rouse her.

Tony took the opportunity to that presented its self with both the Mark II's and Jonas's attention so firmly settled upon the ailing girl in his arms. Calmly, quietly, he moved, careful to tread as softly as possible and make as little noise as possible. It was difficult work. Each and every motion sent shivers down Tony's spine as the bamboo flooring gave tiny, almost imperceptible creaks. Yet, the groans of the wood were amplified in the helmet by audio enhancement, and both Jonas and Rhodes seemed completely distracted by comforting both women. He slipped, unnoticed behind the Mark II suit, his heart breaking with each and every subtle shift of weight that brought him to that place so far from Pepper as she cried in Rhodes's embrace with tiny, lurching sobs. This had all been his fault, and he had to end it, here and now, while he had the opportunity.

The Iron Monger had been simple enough to mostly disable. Simply rip out enough of the wires connecting the core processors and HUD displays on the inside of the helm, and whoever had hidden beneath the metal cocoon would be helpless. They'd either had to give in or at least open the suit a bit, exposing themselves. He licked his suddenly dry and salty lips, tensing his hands. There could and would be only one shot at this; he had to get it right and ruin just enough of his own creation in one swift blow.

"What did you do to her?" Jonas barked, feeling for a pulse at the girl's bare neck.

Rhodes glanced to where the boy knelt with Kitten sprawled across the floor. Her body had gone limp, her skin deathly ashen and pale. Sweat trickled from her forehead in heavy droplets. The bleeding at her shoulder had decreased slightly, but a thin trickle still seeped from the hole in her cotton shirt, while the slash down her cheek had staunched, already caking about the neat edges. The gleaming, silver suit stiffened, drawing up its hands and ready to fire upon both Rhodes and Pepper. The colonel's gaze flicked for but a second to where Tony stood, ready behind the Mark II suit, his cover blown as Jonas glanced back and forth between the armored man and the colonel.

"Me?" Rhodes blurted out defensively, drawing the boy's attention back to him as he pushed Pepper behind him and aimed his firearm.

_"Attaboy, Rhodey. Keep him distracted." _The millionaire gave a small nod.

Rhodes grit his teeth, snapping like a child. "She started it!"

The Mark II suit stood taller, much more imposingly, as Jonas rose to his own feet, stiffening proudly and defiantly before Rhodes. As the boy took a step, so did the suit. Each subtle motion and shift of weight in the boy, the Mark II mirrored to within an impossibly minute tolerance. The boy and the metal contraption took sobering steps forward, stalking towards Rhodes and Pepper. It took Tony a bitter second to realize just what was happening before his very eyes. Jonas. Jonas was controlling the suit from outside of it somehow, driving it without even verbal commands. It was impossible, yet a girl who could detonate the very air around her and steal someone's life right out from inside of them seemed equally as impossible.

Tony's eyes went wide as soon as the cold knowledge of Jonas's unique control over his own armor struck him, and he moved quickly, lunging for the Mark II. His hand shot out, but the boy had been expecting it as he stepped back and away from the fray. The Mark II spun about and caught Tony's gauntleted wrist in a crushing grasp, but neither suit gave. Tony threw his own weight, along with the red and gold armor, into his previous prototype, grabbing at the other gauntlet, trying to throw the thing off balance in vain. Both suits were equally matched, differing only in temperature tolerances of the external alloys. Weight, weapons systems, power, it was all so very evenly put. The Mark II and the Mark III danced a deadly ballet with one another, leaning and shoving to throw one another.

Rhodes turned his aim on the Mark II armor, firing off a round without even thinking. He applied just the tiniest bit of pressure to the trigger, and the pistol went off with a white flash and hard, cracking report. It was only after the firearm kicked in recoil that the sheer stupidity of shooting at the metal suit finally struck Rhodes clearly. The bullet pinged as the metal deflected the shot off of the imposing armor, leaving but a tiny scuff in its wake. Yet the suit kept moving and fighting, struggling against Tony in his armor. The Mark II broke its right hand free of Tony's grip and moved swiftly, racing to charge the palm repulsor and deliver a killing blow right to the inventor's face.

_"No," _he screamed mentally.

Green traffic lights flashed in his thoughts, mingling amidst memories of coding Jarvis in twilight hours. A brilliant moment occurred, right as the light of the repulsor got too bright to see any of the mechanical details to the gauntlet he had designed himself. Electricity sizzled down each and every one of Tony's synapses from his head down to his toes, singing in a strange binary of sorts. Zeroes and ones waltzed and fired through his nerves and brain. It felt unusual, but not alien, oddly enough. If anything, it comforted Tony, washing over him warmly.

Ages ago, Tony had sat in on a screening of _Hackers_ with a few of the coeds in the MIT dorms. Despite his youth, the inventor had imagined going into the viewing purely so he could spent most of the movie with his hands and lips occupied with one of his female friends. However, the plot line of hackers battling rogue programmers and the law had instantly enthralled his younger self, and, in that moment, as information flourished and blossomed in his mind, Tony found himself thinking of _Hackers_, of Angelina Jolie in a phone booth in Grand Central with her friends, breaking into a super computer as fractal patterns of codes and equations spun on their laptop screens.

The numbers scattered before regrouping about Tony. The world stopped on a dime for the inventor as numerals flared in his mind and codes unfurled before him like the many petals of a glorious flower. The codes enfolded him, glowing and gleaming in bright colors, brighter than the repulsor aimed at him, snaking into his vision. Lights flickered in and out of existence like stars as tiny executable programs and logs worked their magics around him. A distant part of Tony wanted so desperately to contemplate the implications of whatever he saw streaming across his view and and mind in neat numerals and key words, but there wasn't time for that, not now.

His mind reached out, instinctively, lashing out for the codes before him. It snared a familiar string, one Tony had crafted himself not too long ago. Tony found himself praying so very hard for it to just be dead and gone. The program shattered, and the repulsor in his vision went black and dead. Tony cackled inside the dark of his own suit, relieved and terrified at the same time at whatever he'd just willing.

"Hm... interesting."

Tony snapped his head in the direction of the sound. Underneath everything, she had lurked there in an almost skeletal form. The girl in her prim, almost Victorian dress with apron, like some hideously twisted Alice, still a little, imaginary lolita. It was the same girl who had been in his vision at SETEC, existing only in the smartlink of the Mark III suit. Faint wireframes highlighted her edge and form without color to completely give her substance, but it was more than enough to recognize the artificial intelligence where she stood, one hand on Jonas's shoulder, gazing intently upon Tony.

When the Mark II suit moved to swing again, only milliseconds after the repulsor controllers died, Tony actually felt the tidal wave of raw data and coding rushing towards him. The sea of electrons and code hit him before the metal gauntlet could ever reach his helm. Tony ducked back on nimble legs, his reflexes wired from a sharp burst of adrenaline. The balled, metal hand skimmed past the Mark III's vision, leaving a wake of glittering binary behind it as the other first came from him. Tony stepped back as the suit came for him, his eyes catching the tiny moment of metallic flaps raising at the shoulders of the Mark II suit, readying to fire and aiming in multiple directions.

_"Pepper!"_

Tony's mind hummed with an electric buzz, like no other sensation in his life, as his mind scrambled to think of some way to end this before anyone got killed in his own home. His vision snapped for a moment before it overlapped. A pang of dizziness hit him suddenly as Tony stumbled back from another potential blow from the Mark II suit as his ming struggled to cope with the overlay. He saw both the metal armor charging, aiming, as well as himself, with smartlink cross hairs trained directly upon his forehead.

_"STOP."_

His mind shrieked the word as loud as it could, but not a sound passed his lips. The Mark II suit froze in place abruptly, obeying Tony's mental command. Droplets of sweat ran down his forehead from the strain of keeping his weary legs under him as well as the mental force he had just exerted. Or, perhaps it was the sudden severance of his focus and concentration, and the nausea that went alone with having two versions of reality so terribly layered atop one another and the fact that his mind hadn't yet found a way to cope with that. Tony couldn't guess, nor could he have cared less. The Mark II suit stood down impassively, in a pure miracle.

Jonas growled, and Tony thought he heard a voice come from the angelic little lolita visage at the boy's side. _"End it."_

The Mark III suit went rigid about Tony as his vision grayed and reality grew slippery around him. The electronic girl vanished from sight but Tony knew she was somehow in there with him. She laughed haughtily in his ears, and he somehow felt her arms and hands upon him with a snapping, electric sizzle. Zeroes and ones flared to life and died where she touched him, his skin tingling from the contact. The girl pressed upon his mind with a crushing force somehow, even though, by all means, this lolita was just an artificial intelligence and, by all means, had no right exerting a tangible force in the real world. His body felt cold and distant, not completely listening to his own, mental commands, as a crippling migraine blazed through him at stabbed at his skull. The exquisite flower of binary and programming withered and died as the codes dashed to pieces about him.

The Mark III suit snapped to life once more, charging hard, but not through Tony's control. Instead, the inventor became nothing more than a puppet trapped in the metal suit. He screamed out commands to power down as the armor ran, but he had been alone in the suit. He'd ordered Jarvis to stand down. He struggled against the suit, clenching his muscles, but Tony had designed it to be much more powerful than human flesh.

To Tony's horror, the Mark III helmet turned and focused its attention on the target and forcing the inventor to face it as well through the smartlink as red crosshairs selected targets. Pepper and Rhodes. The colonel had been pulling Tony's personal assistant away from the action, towards the door. Rhodes's eyes went wide in shock as his own friend in the metal suit seemed to turn on them. Tony shivered at the look of both terror and betrayal in both the faces of Rhodes and Pepper, at his utter lack of control over his own, suddenly monstrous invention.

Rhodes stilled, though, calm and collected, swinging his aim about to target Jonas. He fired a perfectly aimed round, right at the boy's chest, but the Mark III suit was faster. Tony grit his teeth as his muscles strained against the suit and were manipulated beyond natural design. The bullet slammed into the outside of his right arm, easily blocked before the suit moved again, too fast to be believed. No one should have been able to react fast enough to deflect a bullet, nor to reach out and snatch Rhodes by the neck, hauling him off the ground so swiftly. The blood ran cold in Tony's veins as his own arm held the colonel up, kicking impotently at the metal armor before him.

_"Rhodey!" _His heart wrenched in his chest at the sight of his friend thrashing in his own hold.

Tony's mind reeled and scrambled, clawing out for those zeroes and ones that had been there about him just seconds ago, but it found purchase on nothing. His heart slammed in his chest as Rhodes's face went red and the man gasped for air desperately. However, the programming that had been there about him refused to respond. Tony felt helpless and pathetic, like he could cry, watching his friend pawing weakly at the metal glove about his neck. Something wet ran down the side of Tony's face as his brain kept fighting, but Tony could not tell if it was tears or perspiration in the dark.

Then, his vision became solid again, no longer the electronic, virtual display of the smartlink that Tony had grown so accustomed to within his own suit. It became reality. Tony could have, should have, screamed, freaked out, cried, or something. Instead, it brought a sense of calm, cold, mechanical logic to the man. He felt the suit inside of him, not about him as it usually encased him. Tony became the suit but remained himself, allowing it to drift into him and settled warmly over his nervous system.

Tony loosened his hand, concentrating to the point where his head throbbed. He thought of nothing but his right palm opening. His body refused to respond for a moment, fighting him. The fingers of the Mark III, however, gave way ever so slightly. Delicious shivers of tiny victory raced through Tony. Yet the fight raged on as something fought Tony to regain control over the suit and the inventor trapped inside the metal casing. The colonel took a few, hard, deep breaths, drinking in as much of the cool, sweet air as the hold would allow.

The artificial girl frowned in petulance, standing on edge all of a sudden; both she and Jonas whispered in an ominous, synchronized tone. "Otaku."

The gauntlet suddenly gripped Rhodes's neck tighter as the small measure of control Tony though he'd reclaimed was instantly wrested from him in a horrible, slamming moment as the artificial intelligence flung his consciousness from within the Mark III suit. Tony's brain shrieked in tortured protest from the mental abuse. His nerves burnt, scorched from end to end. Binary flared in his eyes with white hot lettering, burning at his vision. His muscles twitched, unable to control themselves. When Tony realized what had happened, he blinked furiously to clear his vision, horrified to notice he still held his gasping, gagging friend off the ground.

Jonas approached slowly, stalking, while Pepper shrank back from the boy and her out of control employer. The artificial intelligence did not stand at his side anymore, but the boy stalked with predatory, aggressive steps, his eyes hungry and fierce, filled with bloodlust.

The boy gave a curt toss of his head. "Fancy that."

He leveled a stern gaze upon Tony, still trapped in the metal suit, and a queer symbol appeared in the internal displays of the exosuit. It was two half circles, butted together. The image seared into Tony's vision and over his brain. Numbers appeared over it, before the image sank into him, like a brand.

Jonas turned his attention to Rhodes, a hint of disdain flashing through the boy's youthful features for but a moment. His lip curled as though this was all something he utterly loathed doing For a moment, Tony hoped, truly hoped, that the boy had regained sanity enough to just let them all go and wash his hands with this little, brutal, bloody war between Ares Industries and Mitsuhama Computer Technologies.

The artificial intelligence forced its self upon him again, leaning over Tony. The vision changed in the smartlink of the helmet from natural visuals to an almost x-ray effect. Tony found himself looking right into Rhodes's neck, as his spine where the gauntlet pressed down. He gasped as the armor adjusted its grip, and, as such, manipulated Tony's own hand to match. The little electronic girl cackled wildly in his ears, enjoying it as she made Tony watch.

"NO!" Tony howled in primal rage.

Any hope fell away with a terrible, meaty crunch. The Mark III suit moved with an expert knowledge of human anatomy, pinching, twisting, and contorting in all the wrong places until the bone gave way with a sickening crack, and Tony had been given a front row seat for the show. He felt the bones pop and crush beneath his own fingers as though he'd been the one to do it, and not the exosuit that enveloped him. In his vision, he saw the bones splinter and shattered under the hold of the Mark III. Rhodes shrieked out in agony, a blood-curdling scream that would haunt both Tony and Pepper for the rest of their lives. Then, the Mark III suit just released its hold on the colonel, letting the soldier fall bonelessly to the well-appointed, bamboo floor of the Stark residence. Rhodes lay there, his body wracked by small convulsions as Tony stood, frozen in abject horror over the injured man he'd just dumped to the ground.

_"I did it. I did... this."_

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: Okay, it took a long time coming because, after writing it a first time, this chapter just didn't pack the kind of mental/emotional abuse it needed to and there were completely different plot actions going on. This is a much cleaner transition towards breaking Tony Stark. Sadly, I am an insanely sadistic writer, and I've set my sights on Tony.

Hopefully you're enjoying the ride thus far, even if you are a Rhodes fan. I love him, and, after this chapter, I just want to give him a hug, even if that could cause potentially more damage.


	10. Information Overload

**DUMPSHOCK - INFORMATION OVERLOAD**

_"I did it. I did... this... to Rhodey."_

His brain cycled the thought over and over again, his hands burning from the grizzly sensation of snapping Rhodes's neck like a twig, even if the offending party had actually been Jonas or his pet artificial intelligence... or whatever. But Tony had been a part of it, knew it within every fiber of his being. Jonas had driven the action, but it was Tony's hands that had done it. Stark had allowed it to happen, powerless to stop himself from hurting one of the few people in the world he cared about. The Mark III suit went rigid about him, imprisoning Tony in place where he stood, staring over the prone form of Rhodes.

Tony Stark had, perhaps, two or three true friends in the world. Pepper Potts. James Rhodes. Hogan. Jarvis. Granted, that last one was a technicality, true, since Jarvis really only existed as a computer program and not really human at all. His machines and his robots had often _felt_ like companions of sorts in his drunken hazes, when Tony would launch into bitter diatribes about life and the hand he'd been dealt since Afghanistan. However, there remained only three true friends, and one of them in a broken heap upon the floor, mangled and maimed by Tony's own hands and right in his own home. Tony's heart broke, shattering into a million tiny pieces, each riddled with crushing shame.

The diagnostics and visual displays to the suit went dead and cold, but not empty as his own heart, plunging Tony in a deep void. The millionaire jerked and twisted in his metal coffin, trying to will the suit to move, to budge even if just an inch. But, oh god, how it hurt. His mind burnt and throbbed between whatever split reality and ball of wills he'd endured, leaving Tony spent and frayed. His body ached from the physical damage he'd been dealt over the last few days. Hot blood seeped from his his and trickled down the inside of his armor.

The shadows pressed in on Tony, tightening and constricting on his chest. He'd never felt claustrophobic in any of his suits. Quite the opposite. The enveloping metal had always been a welcome sensation before, heralding a strength that no man possessed, as well as serving as a constant reminder of his hard earned liberation. The suits gave him a mental fortitude before, but, now, trapped in one, Tony felt the air grow hot and turn foul on his tongue. Sweat poured off his body as the world closed in about him.

Tony let out a scream, shouting and bellowing, swearing with every profanity Tony could think of- which, surprisingly, included quite a few he'd long forgotten, until his voice went hoarse and cracked. He pitched forward, slumping in the suit, suddenly weak and feverish as his muscles twitched from the strain of his struggles.

"JONAS! THIS ISN'T OVER!"

There came no answer within that awful metal tomb.

He sobbed the words, bitter and vile on his lips. "This isn't over."

xxxx

Pepper Potts composed herself well enough to scramble across the cool, wood floor to Rhodes's side. She reached with a tender, hesitant hand to feel for a pulse at his wrist, afraid of what she might find.

"I'd be careful if I were you," Jonas called softly in solemn sort of mockery. "Don't move him."

The woman grit her teeth but kept her attention on the semi-conscious and clearly suffering Rhodes as his dazed and glossy eyes drifted across the room. Her heart raced, slamming in her chest and pounding in her ears with deafening thuds as she took his hand and held it reassuringly. Both she and the colonel watched, helplessly, as Jonas struggled to take up Kitten's dead weight and half drag, half carry her to the door.

"You monster!" Pepper hurled the insult at the pair as hot tears rolled down her pale cheeks.

Jonas paused for but a moment, raising an eyebrow, sneering, "If we're just 'monsters,' then what do you call a mass murderer like Tony Stark? Is he any better?" He waited for an answer, a comment, or witty comeback, but Pepper could not raise a single one. "Yeah. I didn't think so."

And, with a huff, Jonas dragged Kitten from the Stark house and into the sunlight.

xxxx

Tony's memories lurched forward in a blur, snapping and flashing like skip frames of existence. One instant, he was in the suit, trapped in that dreadful, closing darkness, sweltering heat, and thin air. The next thing he knew, Tony was out, sucking down massive gulps of cool air, never tasting anything so sweet before in his life. He could not remember how he got out of the Mark III suit, although he suspected Pepper had played a pivotal role in it.

As the inventor's shocked and traumatized mind went into autopilot, things jumped forward. It was often said that, in times of great mental and psychological strain that the mind would shut down emotions and focus purely on the tasks at hand. It came as a cold, dead feeling inside. His mind reeled and worked in overdrive, but, in his chest, a heavy dullness settled over Tony, somewhere in between the gaping socket for the arc reactor and his heart.

He did not recall his assistant dialing 911 while he was trapped in the exosuit, although Pepper would later insist she had. Tony didn't even remember an instant of the paramedics' arrival nor the quick story Potts concocted about the Ironman suit as a "sculpture." Images of Rhodes behind secured to a backboard and carried gently from his home flashed in Tony's imagination as he strained to listen. He could hardly recall her hands working to free locks and catches all about him until Tony fell free of his prison. The drive to the hospital at breakneck speeds in his Mustang escaped Tony's memories, however he did vaguely hear Pepper's shrieks of terror as he sped down the highway, racing to catch up with the ambulance that bore his fallen friend.

Tony did, to his great shame, remember his arrival at the emergency room. Rhodes had arrived shortly before them, along with a rather large contingent of paparazzi and reporters. The journalists flooded the ambulance bay as the Shelby-Mustang came to a screeching halt there. He hadn't even gotten out of the car before the reporters started calling and barking at him, asking questions and demanding answers with their microphones and cameras. Tony pushed past them, ignoring the dull ache in his side as he helped Pepper out of the passenger seat, trying not to notice the thick crimson stains covering the driver's and back seats. Pepper trembled as they tried to batter their way through the crowd until, finally, something deep inside Tony snapped. He partly recalled slugging one of the photographers soundly, possibly breaking the paparazzi's nose before sliding through the stunned crowd with Pepper and into the ER.

He stood at the window to a trauma room, staring in as x-rays were taken about Rhodes's shattered beck, confused as to how he got there, when the world went gray. His knees gave way, and Tony went sliding down to the floor where he sat in a shocked heap. Pepper was at his side in a heartbeat, shouting for doctors.

Information flickered through Tony's mind at an alarming rate. He'd always been a fast thinker, but nothing like this. His brain processed on its own accord, multitasking beyond his control, processing and sorting. He'd heard of injuries like Rhodes's, seen x-rays, and details, meeting a few victims of such trauma up close and personal at a conference that featured Dean Kamen's iBot Mobility System. Tony drew up schematics and detailed information on human physiology in his mind's eye from nothing. He worked out percentages and probabilities in his mind, letting the world go into a hazy tailspin while he struggled to make sense of his own calculations.

Pepper's voice whispered in his ear as she threw her arms about him and drew him near to her. "Tony, it's not your fault."

But it was.

Then, when everything came into focus again, there was waiting. He sat in a cold, sterile curtain area on a scratchy mattress beside a clearly distant and shattered Pepper. His shirt had been cut or peeled away, revealing the steadily glowing arc reactor in his chest, along with the bandages and gauze pads that now covered his assorted wounds. He felt numb and only mildly altered, looking down at an IV line attached to his arm and pondering what exactly they'd given him to dull both his surging thoughts and his aching body. Tony glanced about to take in everything as the woman by his side stared into space blankly in her own, solemn vigil, her eyes red with tears holding his hand limply in her own.

An emergency room physician came to them and spoke in contrived, compassionate tones, well practiced over long years of breaking sad news to friends and family. He talked of current conditions and the severity of spinal injury, carefully guarding his words to avoid slipping and mentioning a poor prognosis in front of the clearly traumatized Tony and Pepper, but the inventor saw right around that little ruse. The doctor went on to speculate at the potential for significant motor function recovery, thinking it highly probably with extensive care and physical therapy, but Tony knew it was all a lie, an elaborate sham meant to give hope. Where other parts of the conversation faded together in Tony's mind, one memory stood out in stark focus amid all else, the bitter recollection of rather soundly slugging the doctor in a deep rage that demanded to be vented upon something, anything. Orders were shouted about him, and hands grappled with his own. He thought he heard Pepper shrieking at him, pleading him to calm down, but, after that, things went into a sort of crimson haze.

When Tony finally calmed enough for rational thought once more, he'd been returned to his bed in the curtain area. He felt foggy and watery along his bruised and mildly singed face, like he'd taken a couple of good blows in a decent brawl. The millionaire rather quickly decided that the damned doctors hadn't played fair by ganging up on him like that. Pepper sat across from him, answering phone call after phone call on her Blackberry, unaware of Tony's sudden lucidity.

He knew with a crystalline focus what he needed to do. This was a war, and there had already been too many casualties. Mitsuhama and Ares seemed primed for a confrontation with Stark Industries nestled right in the middle of the crossfire. It was a dire mess that had already cost far too many lives, in Tony's opinion. The inventor could not explain nor comprehend whatever had happened in the house, but his mind stilled once more to allow the information to settle in and conclusions to form. A name danced in his thoughts, reappearing again and again, a name he knew to well.

A doctor appeared with them again, this time sure to stray far from Tony's long reach. He spoke in words that only barely registered to the millionaire. This time, he spoke of whatever procedure Rhodes had gone through, suddenly leery sounding despite his insistently high hopes for a meaningful recovery in Rhodes. Tony went dead and still as one, piercing thought gripped his mind as the physician left him.

Tony glanced down at his hands again, still feeling bone crunch and give beneath them. _"I did that."_

The walls closed in on him, as all eyes seemed to be upon him, even the doctors and nurses as they passed by. His throat tightened, squeezing in upon its self and strangling the air from Tony. His eyes stung, and Tony shook his head. He had to get out of there and now, and Tony knew what he had to do beyond that.

He had to go back to the beginning, and there truly was only one person who could take him there, no matter how much the millionaire loathed the possibilities, and, from there, he had to make those mercenaries pay dearly for what had happened to Rhodes. It was a calm, cool fact of life, as exacting and necessary as breathing. Slowly, he swung his legs off the side of the bed, biting back a momentary bought of dizziness. An eerie resolve settled in. Then, he reached down to the plastic sack of personal effects below the gurney, pocketed his phone and wallet, took his shoes, and slowly began to tie them.

Pepper glanced up with weary eyes, quickly ending whatever call she had been engaged in and closing her phone. "Mr. Stark?" He didn't answer as he stood, sending shivers down Pepper's spine. "Tony?"

Tony shook his head gravely. "Don't, Miss Potts." He tapped his arc reactor, a nervous habit of his that had not gone unnoticed to Pepper. "I'm fine."

In truth, the inventor didn't know where he was off to, wandering away even as Pepper cried out desperate pleas met by deaf ears. His assistant following, her heels clicking briskly and almost cheerfully on the tile floor. He let his feet move without consciously recognizing where they were taking him until he reached the entrance to the ER. His little Shelby Mustang had been towed some hours before, but there were a few cabs off to the side. The swarm of reporters had been dispelled by police presence to pathetic numbers, kept fifty yards away by a few, patrolling officers. A gentle, world washing rain had begun to fall, but Tony didn't care about any of that. He had to get away.

"Tony..." Pepper put a hand on his shoulder. "The doctors are not done with you yet. And Jim..." She trembled, her voice hitching and trailing off hesitantly before swallowing the sorrowed lump in her throat and changing the subject. "What are you going to do?"

The man stiffened, shaking his head and shrugging off her hand as he stepped out, into the rain, letting it pelt down upon his body and instantly drench him to the skin. Tony glanced upwards to the sky, enjoying the concrete feeling of heavy droplets splashing down his face. His closed his eyes and felt the enormity of what lay before him.

Tony shook his head, shoved his hands in his pockets, and started to walk away. "Take care of business."

Before his assistant could argue otherwise, Tony slipped into a cab, announced his destination, and sank into the chair. He might have dozed, but, before Tony knew it, the taxi driver called over his shoulder to his passenger. The millionaire nodded slowly, overpaid his driver, and trudged up to his home.

At the front door, when his fingertips brushed the knob, Tony's breath caught. Then, the man gave a small shake of his head and stalked away from the front door, back to the comforting, concealing refuge of the tall grove of grasses. He took the barrel key from his pocket, opened the cellar door, and descended in the darkness. Inside the tunnel, in the shadows, it felt damp and cool, relaxing almost. The man stalked down the passage, back into the basement.

"Jarvis?"

"Yes, sir."

Tony nodded to himself. "Can you reconnect to the main server now?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do it." The millionaire skulked up the length of the servant's passage and to the shop before settling into a chair. "I need you to find someone for me."

"Who, sir?"

Tony drew in a deep breath, not wanting to say it, not wanting to know. Yet, he needed to. This had all started with two people signing one, stupid contract. Tony couldn't go to Nicholas Aurelius for answers, not after whatever had happened at SETEC to whatever they'd been hiding there. No. Tony knew exactly where to turn to find the answers he needed.

"Obadiah Stane."

Jarvis immediately replied, "Records state that Obadiah Stane is curre-"

The inventor cut off his own creation with a harsh bark. "I know what records state!" He rubbed his throbbing head, feeling a migraine creeping up on him again. "It's been falsified. I need to know exactly where Obadiah is, and now."

xxxx

_Five days. It had only been five days since he'd casually rescinded the request to fabricate a Jericho missile for the Ten Rings. Yet those five days had been absolute misery, dragging on for what felt like years. They had taken Tony down, deeper into the crushing, wintery cold of the caves, to where the frigid air stole his breath away. They beat him, nearly downed him in freezing cold water, taunted him, did everything and anything to break him. Each session, Tony stubbornly refused despite their best efforts to coerce him otherwise, and, after each session, they dragged his barely conscious body back to the cell, leaving him without even a blanket to stave off the bitter cold. _

_Tony had taken it all in stride, with no other option. He could not, would not hand over a Jericho to these monsters who had taken him. No. The Ten Rings would only turn the weapon against innocent people. People like Pepper and Rhodey. Tony admittedly didn't have many friends in the world, but the few he did have, their faces flashed in his mind every time these animals ordered the inventor to build a Jericho for them. Stark gladly took whatever beatings they dished out to keep his friends and all the innocent people of the world safe from his own weapons and designs. _

_However, his torture hadn't ended when the men roughly dumped him to the ground and bolted the steel door shut behind them. Every two hours, they came into the cell, shouting and barking in languages Tony couldn't understand, forcing him to his feet for maybe fifteen minutes at a time before letting him go. The lights overhead were bright, invasive floodlights, blinding him. They gave him not a scrap of food for those five days, and far too little water each day. The Ten Rings were good, torturing Tony on multiple levels. They not only dealt brutal physical punishment, but also took the basic things he needed to live, including any hope of escape. _

_At first, Tony wasn't afraid. Yet, when his own body started to turn against him, then the gravity of the situation crept into focus. It started with a headache and a dizziness, not unlike the many hangovers Tony had experienced in his life. Aside from that, the man just felt extremely tired, as though no amount of sleep could stave off the exhaustion. It was only when the man realized he'd stopped urinating that he started to worry. His body flushed while the cold gripped him fiercely, sending shivers through his body. _

_And the electromagnet? The terrorists had at least been kind enough to leave him with the battery, knowing that the millionaire would die without it. His chest constantly ached. Each and every breath hurt, and, so, Tony tried to keep as still and as quiet as possible. The surgeon had flushed about the surgical port carefully every few hours, but, now, Tony could feel it oozing something awful with a terrible, permeating a foul odor that was somehow worse that his own, unwashed stench of fear, sweat, and blood. His body froze while tongues of fire licked at the penetrating wound. A grizzly temptation to open the bandages and survey the injury gripped Tony, but a horror of what lie beneath the filthy wraps strangled the man._

_On the fourth day, Tony could not even summon the strength to lift his head off the ground. The guards still came in every couple of hours to wake him and unsuccessfully tried to haul their captive to his feet. After a while, they stopped trying, coming in and nudging or kicking Tony in the side with heavily booted feet to wake him. He just remained there, on the ground, deathly still as he took the blows. _

_And, then, he suddenly didn't fear again. No, a deep calm settled over him with acceptance, the calm of a man prepared to die and finally be at peace. He thought of the suffering in which he lingered, and the embracing void that would follow death. It wouldn't be such a bad way to go, really. He had already gotten fairly dehydrated, and the seizures that would likely kill Tony could not be that far off now. It would just be so easy to stop fighting, stop willing himself to live. His life could slip away so others could live. Tony resolved himself of this now and curled up on the cold floor. The meager ration of water remained untouched where it rested on the stone floor before the door that day. _

_The fifth day was spent in pure agony until they finally hauled him from the hole up to the cell he'd been previously kept it. Tony hardly remembered the long drag up from the darkness, only becoming truly aware when his body crashed down, into the ground in a familiar setting. He clawed out, reaching to pull his battered, bruised and tired body from the ground and onto a cot. The cables to the car battery painfully jerked on the electromagnet in his chest. The millionaire grunted as he grabbed the handle to the heavy battery and forced himself to pull it closer to the cot so he could clamber into bed. Tony rolled over weakly, his energy already sapped as he pulled a thin blanket over his freezing body to lay there as his body quivered with chills. He remembered the sound of his own, wheezing breath before shutting his eyes and trying desperately to just drift away to sleep._

_"Stark?"_

_The man again, the surgeon who had supposedly saved Tony's life. The millionaire dimly recognized the voice, but he didn't care. He was just too damned tired and too fucking cold to care. The inventor clenched his teeth to keep them from chattered as he struggled to fight the chills that wracked his battered body. _

_"Stark?" the surgeon called again as he drew nearer._

_Even if Tony wanted to replied, the man wasn't certain he could. His throat had gone hoarse days ago from his own, tortured screams. Instead, he grunted in what could have been interpreted as an answer of sorts._

_A hand touched his shoulder timidly. "Stark?"_

_Why wouldn't they just leave him alone?_

_Tony tried to wrench an answer from his throat, but his body betrayed him. The man hacked a gurgled, debilitating cough, his entire body shrieking agony as he did, even after the coughing fit abated and his body relaxed back into the cot. The surgeon must have taken this as a bad sign as Tony immediately felt hands upon his throat, checking his carotid pulse gently. Fingers tenderly pried his eyelids open to the blinding light. A hand forced his mouth open, prodding at Tony's gum line. The inventor summoned enough energy to try to shove the hands from his face, but it was and short lived rally as his energy waned. His hands fell to his sides, dead and limp._

_The surgeon flung a scathing lash of what was most likely curses in some language before letting his voice drop to a dull whisper as the back of his hand touched Tony's forehead. "What did they do to you?"_

_Tony tried not to think about things like that. He tried to think of Pepper and only Pepper. He could dream of her. Ah, yes. Pepper Potts. Prim. Precise. Perfect. There were perhaps a billion different words Tony could come up with to describe Pepper. Ginger. Tony liked that word for her. It fit her somehow. _

_The bitter cold hit Tony like a freight train when those hands unzipped his thin jacket. It stole his breath, sending another wave of coughs through him. Tony shivered violently, unable to control it at all now. Why couldn't they just let him be sick and leave him alone. It was so very cold, and he just wanted to be in a warm bed. He longed to be home, in his own bed, nestled between warm sheets, with the warm Malibu sunshine pouring through his windows and cascading over him, keeping him nicely toasty along with the house's automated climate control. Oh, yes, that would be nice._

_A flurry of motion and agonizing sensation at his chest drew the millionaire from his daydream. Tony let his eyelids hang at half-mast, unable to argue, just watching with unfocused and vague interest as the sodden, damp, and soiled bandages were cut from him. The surgeon's weathered face fell, grim and solemn at the sight of the socket, and he swore under his breath. Tony let himself relax into his shakes, thankful that the doctor left him alone, but the respite was short lived when the surgeon began to tear away at Tony's clothes, shouting to the bolted steel door in words that Tony couldn't understand at all. Skillful fingers tested enflamed flesh about the socket wall, sending white hot pains coursing through Tony and drawing forth a simply shameful whimper. The millionaire batted weakly at the tortuous hands with a depressing lack of fine motor control as adrenaline danced down his nerves._

_The surgeon leaned close to Tony's face, holding his head between two hands. "Stark, listen to me. Listen carefully." The surgeon waited for the haze to lift off of Tony just enough to focus. "You're dehydrated, and the socket wall's infected." The millionaire groaned deeply, his eyes rolling in back, but the doctor just paused again for Tony to scrap together enough lucidity to understand before deadpanning. "You're very sick. Understand?" Tony could hardly nod, but the doctor took it as a good enough answer. "You have to let me help you."_

_Tony contemplated the offer. Those days in the cell, under the blinding flood lights, he'd accepted death, welcomed it. His mind had rationalized it as a trade. His life for the lives of all the people who would be spared by denying the Ten Rings the Jericho. A fitting trade. Tony had felt it with such conviction. To have the option placed before him again confused his addled brain. _

_Tony croaked in a rasping voice, "Cold..."_

_It wasn't really an answer at all as darkness encroached upon his vision, slowly closing in on him again; the doctor, however, took that as all the response he needed. "It's the fever. We will get your core temp down, and you will feel better. I promise."_

_"S'just..." Tony trailed off from the broken slur._

_The doctor said something over him, but Tony couldn't hear it. Merciful, black unconsciousness had taken him again. He drifted in and out for a time, his memories hazy of the time after. _

xxxx

Sleep did not hold Tony for long. He'd passed out over his searching, dozing for perhaps ten or twenty minutes before dreams took his mind. He dreamt of Afghanistan now and again, but, mostly, he dreamt of Rhodes. His friend's face, contorted with pure, flashed in his mind again and again, invading his already terrible nightmares. When Tony jolted awake, his right hand pulsed with his racing heartbeats, but it felt more and more like brittle bones snapping and popping in his palm. His hand twitched nervously, and it took a moment for him to still the unconscious quivering.

Tony rubbed the bleariness and sleep from his eyes as he stood, yawning. "Any luck, Jarvis?"

"No, sir."

The millionaire shook his head solemnly as his stomach growled. Tony hadn't eaten in hours, and his body protested the involuntary fast. He had to take care of himself, had to eat. Perhaps, if he were lucky, there was still some seaweed shake in the fridge, or maybe Pepper had ordered something for him. He strode up the stairs, not noticing how each step became increasingly reluctant, not realizing just how much effort it took the man to force himself upstairs, until he reached the top of the stairs and the living room. Tony ignored the dull sensation of dread within him, writing it off as lingering pain from the stab wound at his side.

It seemed different somehow than it had in the morning. Parts of the Mark III suit lay scattered about in a haphazard manner, along with tools from the shop. Pepper must have pretty much ripped the exosuit from off of him, leaving parts where she tossed them.

Tony located the helmet and knelt before the metal thing, gingerly picking up the red and gold thing and studying it oddly. He had never truly noticed just how downright dour and mean of a face he had crafted into the helm. The ghastly visage grimaced at Tony, staring right through him, and the millionaire couldn't help but think on how that angry scowl had been the last thing Rhodes had seen of his friend before... before he did it.

And, then, something in Tony finally snapped like a string wound way too tight. His blood boiled over in a pure, seething rage. He threw the helmet, flinging it wildly away, strangely satisfied by the sound of something shattering as the helm struck it. Tony stood, trembling, a sudden pulse of adrenaline coursing through his veins. The man flew into a blind rage, venting it on everything and anything in his path, swatting a mod sculpture right off a side table. Tony pitched the table over right after it. He lashed out, throwing a jarring punch into a picture frame on the wall. The glass cracked, and pointed shards slashed through his knuckles.

Tony hissed as he drew his hand back, examining the gashes sprinkled with glittering bits of glass, yet, somehow, the pain felt good. It felt real and absolute, just as concrete and certain as the rain had outside the hospital, as opposed to the emptiness that seemed to plague him. The millionaire reached to one of the deeper cuts and plucked out a splinter of glass, hardly wincing as the thing cut on its way out and dropped it on the floor. The millionaire spun about to the kitchen and wrapped his hand in a towel to stem the blood before it got everywhere.

There, on the counter, Tony's eyes spied something. A pair of brown, plastic vials and a note. The inventor approached cautiously, as though it were a deadly viper, but, instead, found himself greeted by Pepper's neat, precise script.

_"I stopped in to get a few things and check on you, but you were asleep downstairs. You looked like you needed it, so I didn't wake you. The doctor wanted me to bring you your medications and try to get you to come back in. I'm heading back to the the hospital. If you need anything, anything at all, please call me, Tony. -PP."_

Tony sniffed in disdain at the note and scoured the kitchen, finding only a bottle of Chopin vodka in the freezer. It would do. The inventor unscrewed the lid and threw it down. The vodka burnt as Tony practically poured it down his own throat, but it felt warm and relieving. He stood for a moment, letting the alcohol swirl within him as he stared at the carnage that had been his own living room before retreating back to the shop below. Tony plopped down into his chair and drank deeply of the bottle until he could not feel, could not remember the meaty sound of bones and cartilage crushing in his hand.

xxxx

_Hands upon him and something burning, liquid, poured about the exterior of the socket. Swearing. Angry shouting over him. His head pounded, but darkness quickly retook him. _

_Wet. A frigid tank of water. His teeth chattered. Tony forced himself to focus. He struggled to lift his eyelids and look about. The water felt so damned cold again him, but the man couldn't find the energy to haul himself from the tank. His body slumped in the icy water. Someone sat at the side of the tub. A cool, damp cloth pressed against his fevered forehead. The doctor. The man stood, gesturing to someone off to the side. Several muscular hands reached into the steel vat, hauling him up and out of the water. Tony moaned, his body aching at the motion, but not a coherent word came out. The black of unconsciousness swallowed the millionaire again._

_Tony swam in a sea of dreams and fog until a sound drew him up again and back to the world of the waking. A humming. Melodious and solemn, a tune that sounded older than ages. It dredged him from the slumber that had claimed Tony for so very long as sensation slowly returned to him. He had been laid upon the uncomfortable cot again, covered in itchy, dirty wool blankets. He no longer felt as cold, and, even as the man dawned on that conclusion, his stomach filled with an unusual, liquid warmth that radiated outward from within. _

_Tony cracked open a cautious eye. The doctor sat beside him, working with something to his side. The stranger drew up a clear liquid in a large syringe before turning to his patient, attaching the syringe to the end of a plastic tube and slowly injecting the fluid. Another slow wave of warmth hit Tony from within. The man could have sworn. His old friend, Mr. Nasogastric Tube. When the doctor had pushed all of the liquid, he looked up, noticing Tony's semi-consciousness. _

_"Can you hear me?"_

_Tony tried to talk, but only a whimper escaped his lips, to his great shame. Tony closed his eyes again in embarrassment before blinking out the bleariness. _

_"The infection was not nearly as bad as it could have been." The patient wasn't sure if the surgeon were speaking to him or to himself just to make noise. "It could have been far worse. Far worse." _

_Tony listened vaguely as the doctor went on, listing complications and variables that only another doctor would currently be interested in. No. Tony had only one concern at that moment. The damned tube. It bothered his throat and the sensation unsettled his stomach. It had to go- again- and quickly. The doctor reached for the end of the ng tube again to push more fluids, and Tony weakly grabbed his wrist. With his free hand, the inventor gestured to his nose, making an outward waving motion._

_The doctor took a bowl from beside him, obviously filled with whatever liquid he had been putting into his patient's gullet. The surgeon snaked a careful hand behind Tony's neck. Gently, the doctor eased the millionaire's head upright._

_"Try to drink."_

_Tony nodded, instinctively swallowing when the warm liquid graced his lips. The stuff tasted overly sweet and a bit salty at the same time. However, to his parched tongue and dry, cracked lips, it was the best thing Tony had ever tasted. Better than the finest of wines or most exquisite of deserts. He drank until it came too fast and the millionaire gagged on it, coughing and sputtering the liquid. The doctor took the bowl away and set it down before easing Tony back onto the cot. _

_"Alright." _

_The doctor took the tube in his hands and peeled the tape that had secured it to Tony's nostril. The inventor closed his eyes. He had been forced to removed the ng tube the first time, but that didn't mean Tony relished the thought of experiencing it a second time. Tony tried to shut out the world, thinking only of Pepper as the surgeon pulled the tube from him. The man had always hated doctors, but this was worse. This went beyond his normal loathing and straight into fucking-hate territory. _

_Tony rose slowly, hesitantly until he sat up. The inventor wasn't sure how long he sat, staring listlessly into space, until the doctor started speaking to him. He'd been so close, so very close, to ending it all. No more pain. No more electromagnet sunk into his own flesh. No more Ten Rings badgering him to build weapons of mass destruction. No more guilt at knowing where his designs were ending up. An end to reason and the quiet finale to his life. So deep in his own thoughts was Tony that he barely registered what the doctor said until one statement stirred him._

_"Is this to be the last act of defiance of the great Tony Stark?"_

_The words cut through him to the quick, stirring some small annoyance that remained in Tony at how easily the doctor had ruined his own plans of resolving this by just giving up. "I shouldn't do anything. They could kill you, they're gonna kill me, either way, and even if they don't, I'll probably be dead in a week."_

_The older man flashed him a knowing and sly sort of smile. "Then, this is a very important week for you, isn't it?"_

xxxx

Biology alone drew the inventor from merciful sleep when his painfully full bladder could not be ignoring any longer. Tony awoke with a dull, watery feeling in his head, slowly returning to consciousness and only mildly cursing himself for the drinking. He didn't know how long he'd been passed out in the shop again, or even what day it was. Tony squinted at the bright, dazzling sunlight pouring in through the window before trudging off to relieve himself before returning to the shop.

When he did, every muscle in his body fired to a state of perfect alertness, as Tony noticed he wasn't alone in his home. Where Tony had been sleeping over his computer terminal as Jarvis continued its vain search of Obadiah Stane, sat Nick Fury. The muscular, bald man stared at the files Jarvis sorted, with little regard or emotion in his face. The split in his lip had been neatly closed with liquid sutures, and the bruising he'd taken had subsided slightly.

Without looking to the millionaire, Fury cooly breathed, "I gave you explicit instructions not to deviate from the dosing schedule."

The little calm in Tony lingering from a night of binge drinking shattered. Tony moved swiftly and fiercely, springing on nimble feet to take Fury. However, somehow, damn him, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent had been expecting it. Fury jumped from the chair, kicking it out from under his feet as Tony charged. The millionaire swatted the thing away, not feeling, not caring. His hand shot out and grabbed Fury by the arm, wrenching it backwards harshly and twisting as Tony threw all of his weight into the agent. The two went pitching to the floor where Fury hit with an oaf.

"You should _NOT_ have done that," Fury snapped viciously.

Tony tugged and turned the wrist he held harder, leaning in to Fury's ear as he bellowed. "Tell me where Obadiah is!"

"Why?"

The inventor jerked harder on the wrist. "JUST TELL ME!"

"He's been incarcerated in a maximum security prison in a classified location," Fury hissed in his own seething rage.

Tony dug his knee into the small of the agent's back. "Where?"

To his annoyance and sudden concern, Fury just laughed at him. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Where?" Tony demanded again in a rough voice he barely recognized as his own.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. Central." Fury grunted the answer.

"Take me to him."

In a flurry, the agent bucked underneath Tony, slamming him back and knocking the inventor off his balance. Fury swung his hand out to snatch Tony's and whip the man about, reversing their previous positions with such lightning speed that the inventor didn't stand a fighting chance. In a heartbeat, his own arm was being pressed against his back, bones sliding as though ready to pop right out of their joints, muscles stretching beyond what seemed a natural limit.

Fury drew close to the side of Tony's head, in a mocking parallel to the inventor's own gestures just a minute before. "I heard about your friend, Mr. Stark, so I am in a far more forgiving mood than I should be." His voice had been soft and almost sympathetic for a second before turning cold and stern, wrought with an authority that Tony doubted had ever been denied. "But, if you ever raise a hand to me again, I'll break it right fucking off."

"Tell me where Obadiah is," Tony snarled, hissing involuntarily as Fury applied further pressure on his arm and pressed the millionaire's face harder into the cool concrete floor.

Fury stiffened. "You're forgetting who the real superheroes are, Mr. Stark. Your efforts have been valiant and well meaning, but bear in mind that it was your intentions that landed your friend in the hospital." The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent tore at Tony's heartstrings with the very mention of Rhodes, but Fury went on, "And, in case you hadn't noticed, Mr. Stark, there's a war going on out there right underneath everyone's eye. It's time you wised up and figured out that, until you get with the program and help me out, you're just a drunk millionaire playing superhero in a tin can."

"Tell me."

"Why?" Fury barked the word in Tony's ear, so loud that it made the millionaire flinch. "Why do you want to know so badly?"

"Because, he's the one who started this."

The agent shifted his weight off of Stark, letting the millionaire up but keeping a cautious distance between them, as though ready for another attack. However, no secondary charge came, as Tony remained on the ground, spent physically and mentally once more from the night of drinking and the small brawl. The big man rubbed the back of his neck, just staring as the inventor glared harshly back.

"And what would you do with Stane?" The agent inquired almost casually once more.

Tony shrugged. "Get some answers. About Jonas. About SETEC. All of this. He's the only person other than Nicholas Aurelius who might know." Fury's eyebrow raised slightly at the mention of the arm industrialist, but Tony just shrugged heavily. "Maybe get some payback for Rhodey. Figure out how to stop all this shit before someone else I care about gets hurt."

"Lofty goals," Fury said flatly.

Tony gave another half-hearted shrug of his shoulders. "Rhodey almost died because of me. He may never walk again, and it's all my fault." The inventor fixed an intense glare upon Nick Fury. "So, you don't have to help me, but I would highly advise getting the hell out of my way."

The agent nodded slowly, as if understanding and, maybe even, mildly impressed. "Get up. You're coming with me."

"Officer, I swear I wasn't drinking," the inventor quipped, his humor returning.

"I'm not arresting you," Fury countered as he hauled the hungover Tony to his feet by his elbow. "But you are coming with me."

"Where?" A small bubble of annoyance rose in the inventor.

"To pay Stane a visit."

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: I'm still really, really sorry to all you Rhodes fans... and I still really want to give him a hug... same with Tony. I'm a bad, bad girl. Sorry for the delay again. I'm normally a much faster writer, but I tend to get into these chapters and run nuts with trying to perfect plot and schtuff anymore.

Anywho, stay tuned for meeting up with Obadiah Stane and maybe even a small taste of the truth about Kitten and Jonas. Maybe. devilish grin


	11. File Transfer Protocol

**DUMPSHOCK - FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL**

The flight from California to New York had been uneventful and best and downright awkward at worst. They had contracted Tony's private jet to ferry the gentlemen across the country to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Central, in New York City. Nick Fury kept to himself, concentrating on the computer and satellite internet access he'd immediately demanded upon boarding the plane, while Tony hunkered down and tried to stay awake, to keep his own nightmares at bay, with varying degrees of success over the long flight.

_"If Rhodey were here we cou..."_

Tony immediately chastised himself mentally for the thought, forcing the wish back. The inventor wasn't even certain he'd be able to look his friend in the eyes again, let alone just hang out like it was old times. It would never be after what Tony had done. He'd taken the bottle of pain medications from the counter before Fury and he left, and, as the thought still churned in his mind, Tony dry swallowed two of the white pills to stop his own, traitorous mind. The inventor dozed in a white fog for the rest of the flight until Fury roused him with a gentle shake shortly before the jet landed.

A rather discreet looking black sedan with cream interior picked them up from Newark-Liberty International Airport in New Jersey to take them through the Lincoln Tunnel and into the City. Tony felt his old spirits kick up once or twice at Fury's expense. First, came the obligatory jest at having to land in Newark, the cesspool of America, to which the S.H.I.E.L.D. nonchalantly commented on how no one would ever think the great Tony Stark would ever fly to Newark as a cover. Then, when he spied the black sedan, Tony had to poke at how bland of and innocuous of a car it was, at which Fury asked in a huff if the millionaire would prefer riding into the City in the back of a garbage truck like someone by the name of Abe. Tony didn't ask and kept quiet for the rest of the drive.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Central towered over Manhattan in the southern end of the island. It pierced the sky in a point that glittered where it touched the clouds. Engineers designed the building to be taller than the World Trade Center towers, complete with state of the art security and structural safety features. Yet, for such an obtrusive part of the New York skyline, very few people actually knew the value of the fixture.

As soon as Tony stepped through the mirrored glass doors to the building, he began to wonder himself how no one's curiosity had ever piqued enough to try to sneak into the skyscraper. However, upon entering and getting a good look about, the inventor came to his senses. Dozens of heavily armed guards in black body armor stood in a precise line. Stark followed curiously in Fury's wake as the man brushed past a reception desk behind heavy lexan paneling, giving the elderly guard behind the desk a small wave.

They stepped into an elevator. Tony raised an eyebrow as Fury swiped a key card at the buttons and punched a few numbers. Numeric codes and keycards. Tony's eyes caught the motion and the sound of the beeping, filing it away in his mind. His own curiosity piqued at all of this as the doors slid closed with a metallic hiss. Down and down the elevator plunged, into the earth below the city. After the elevator descended to a seemingly impossible depth and Tony's ear had popped, it stopped, the doors slid open once more.

Before them stretched a long hall lined with glass windows to cells, with black clad guards posted every fifteen feet. Each cell had a door with an open slot in it, as well as holes running the length of both the top and bottom of the glass. Most of the cells were dark and empty. However, a few were lit further down the way. Tony squinted his eyes, trying to see into the darkened cells as they passed but spying nothing. As they came to the first lit cell, Fury slowed and stopped, folding his arms across his chest.

A familiar voice issued forth from the cell as Tony approached, stopping the inventor dead in his tracks. "Ah, Mr. Fury. Come to chitchat again?"

Obadiah Stane.

"I trust you enjoyed your last book?" Fury asked sociably, ignoring the initial question.

A bed creaked, as Obadiah must have stood; the sound of his former friend's voice thundered in Tony's ears. "It was an interesting selection to say the least." Tony recoiled slightly as a pale hand reached through the slot to hand out a book to Fury, Neil Gaiman's _American Gods_. "Gods and monsters walking around alongside normal people. Makes you think, doesn't it?"

"I suppose," Fury admitted with a sigh. "Mr. Stane, you have a visitor today."

"A visitor?" Tony couldn't tell whether or not Obadiah sounded angry or just surprised at the thought. "Who?"

Fury waved a beckoning hand towards Tony, who took a few, sheepish steps forward and into view of Obadiah. The older man looked tired since the Iron Monger incident, but his beard was cleanly trimmed and kemp. He'd been decked out in bright, green scrubs, a prisoner's garb, as opposed to the business suits Tony was so used to seeing his once friend and mentor in.

It surprised Tony even more to see the cell Obadiah had been confined to. There were a few bookshelves bolted to the walls, a small cot, and a plain desk. A few books sat up on the shelves, mostly paperbacks that looked like they'd certainly seen better days. A sleek, new laptop sat on the desk, open, but too far away for the inventor to see what Obadiah had been working on. It looked like a just a plain bedroom as opposed to the dark, dank prison cell Tony had been previously expecting.

Fury took notice of Stark's intrigue. "We're not animals at S.H.I.E.L.D., contrary to the popular belief."

Tony nodded in the direction of the computer. "Is it online?"

"Of course not," Fury answered quickly and hotly before stalking off, announcing as he left, "You have ten minutes."

Shock and rage flashed in Obadiah's face, but the man quickly contained it. "Tony, Tony, Tony. I haven't seen you in ages. Come to pay your old friend a little visit?"

"Cut the crap, Obi," Tony replied. "I need your help."

The older man laughed dryly, holding up his hands to the walls of his cell. "I'd love to, Tony, but I'm in a little bit of a pinch right now." He gave an almost evil wink. "But, maybe if you were to check back later, I could lend a hand."

Tony bristled, waiting until he was certain Fury had gotten out of easy earshot "Obi, tell me about Resonance."

There came a dark moment when Obadiah's face fell. It was true, the man had no poker face. His emotions screamed in every subtle gesture and nuance to his features. Tony stared intently as Obadiah registered a small measure of both recognition and something else beneath that. Fear? Confusion? No. Tony couldn't put his finger on it. Yet the inventor took note of it as Obadiah regrouped in a heartbeat in a vague attempt to conceal that response.

Obadiah drew a deep breath before carefully wording his answer with a smug grin. "Resonance is the potentially deadly tendency of a system to oscillate at maximum amplitude at certain frequencies, like the Old Tacoma Narrows and opera singers with wine glasses."

"Cute. Very cute. But I was talking more like a little project you had going with Ares Industries," Tony folded his arms across his chest, puffing up slightly as the arc reactor hummed against him.

Obadiah's lips pursed into a calculated frown. "So, you found out about that, huh?"

"Yeah. I did." Tony shook his head. "What were you up to down there?"

The older man began to pace, striding back and forth down the length of glass, but not nervously, more of a stroll of sorts. "I know you won't believe me, Tony, but I really never wanted to kill you. You just... you would never have agreed with our methods."

"What sort of methods?" When his elder didn't answer, Tony pressed. "What were you and Aurelius studying down there?" Obadiah again gave no response, no reaction, and, so, the inventor snapped and played his trump cards. "Tell me about Kitten and Jonas."

Obadiah turned on his heel, an eyebrow raised. "Where did you hear those names?"

"I met them. Both of them," Tony replied.

The prisoner nodded and came closer to the glass, studying his protege's bruised face. "I take if you did more than just meet them." His eyes slipped over Tony's face, noting the small patches of burnt skin and blisters. "So, you tangled with Kitten and you lived to tell the tale. Not many people can claim that." Obadiah seemed only vaguely impressed. "She's a pistol, isn't she?"

"What is she?"

Obadiah shrugged. "She's a deniable asset."

_Deniable asset. _The words alone gave Tony a small start. Corporate terms he'd heard only a few times in his life. Assets and tools that never officially existed, not on paper and certainly not in the real world. Rage boiled over in Tony as lights flickered over head. An ice pick jabbed into his brain and twisted as a migraine flared. The inventor rubbed his throbbing temples. The computer screen seemed to jump and shift as numbers and codes danced in Tony's mind and vision. He swallowed his pride along with two white pills, closing his eyes tightly until the episode subsided. When he opened his eyes, Tony realized that the dual vision had faded into the background and that this had not gone without Obadiah's notice.

"Feeling alright, Tony?" The businessman's seeming concern came out tainted by his previous betrayal.

The millionaire frowned. "What's it to you, Obi?"

"Curiosity." The older man reached over to the now utterly innocuous looking laptop and eased it closed. "Headache, Tony?"

"Maybe." The inventor stuffed his hands in his pockets, not wanting to give anything away to his once friend. Tony flashed a one-hundred-watt smile, but he knew it was fake. "Probably a hangover or a migraine."

"Possibly," Obadiah didn't sound entirely like he was in agreement; instead, he inquired with an extreme and unnerving interest, "How long have you been having them?"

"Since a certain assassin decided to blow-up one of our major research buildings."

The older man nodded in contemplation. "Which one?"

"SETEC."

Obadiah's face scrunched into an odd expression. "Ah." He paused for a moment before beaming. "Tell you what, Tony, since I'm in such a generous and forgiving mood, I'll answer your questions if you answer some of mine."

Tony grudgingly agreed. "Deal. So, what is Kitten, an assassin?"

The older man gave an odd shrug. "Sometimes." Obadiah stuffed his hands into his pockets. "I suppose it would all depend on her client. She's a shadowrunner, a freelancer. Mercenary, really. Heck, if the pay was right, she'd probably kill her own mother. But I hear she's been Mitsuhama's pet for quite a while now."

Tony furrowed his eyebrows. "How do you know so much about her?"

"Uh-uh." Obadiah waggled a cautionary finger at his once protege. "My turn. Did Kitten say or do something to you before these migraines started?"

"Maybe." Tony hadn't given the matter much thought, but, upon closer inspection, the headaches and odd flashes of information and computer coding had only started after she'd nearly killed him on the road that night by putting her hands upon him. "Now, how do you know all about Kitten?"

Obadiah's lips curled into a faint smile, that same smile, Tony recognized with a shudder, that he'd worn as he stared down upon the paralyzed inventor as he stole the arc reactor right out of Tony's chest. "Isn't it obvious, Tony? She's worked for us before. Her... unique skills were a great asset." Obadiah's blue eyes roved up and down the younger man before him, taking in as many details as possible. "Any other unusual symptoms associated with these migraines?"

Tony hated to admit the truth, but he had to get more information. "Mild visual hallucinations." There, quick like a bandaid, it was over. "How deep was she in the company?"

"Very." The other man groaned inwardly at the thought of Kitten having unlimited access and knowledge of all of Stark Industries facilities from her previous employment, but Obadiah quickly asked his question, glimmer in his eyes as the words spilt out. "Is she still alive, Tony?"

"Not for very long if I have anything to say about it," Tony growled, the image of Rhodes's neck snapping replaying in his mind macabrely. "How do I find her?"

The older man paced again, as though lost in his own thought, intensely studying the floor beneath his own feet. "She's a precious commodity, Tony. It'd be a shame if you killed her."

"So I've heard," Tony snarled, recalling Taiga Mitsuhama's own admission.

Obadiah gave a terse laugh. "You really have no idea, do you?" Tony shrugged his shoulders, and Obadiah chuckled harder and louder now. "Here you are going off cocked, locked, and ready to rock, but you haven't the slightest idea what you're up against." The man laughed, shaking his head. "I'd say that's not like you, but we both know it's a lie." Obadiah sighed. "You're in trouble with Kitten, aren't you?"

"Perhaps."

"If it involves Kitten, it must be bad." Obadiah paused, chewing on his lip like he only did when _really _thinking of something before asking, "Well, you're standing here, so it's got to be Miss Potts or Colonel Rhodes. Which one?"

"Rhodey," the millionaire conceded grimly. The prisoner stalked back and forth, almost prowling along his side of the glass like a caged wolf until Tony called out to him. "She's not going to stop, is she?"

"Probably not." Obadiah shook his head. "Kitten's got quite the reputation as a runner's concerned. If you're on her list, you should probably just kick back and enjoy the time you have left before she gets to you, along with anyone else who's seen her."

"Pepper..."

"Mr. Stark, your time is up," Fury's voice echoed down the long hall.

Tony leaned close to the glass, dropping his voice to a whisper. "Tell me how to find her."

"You've got to find a runner bar." Obadiah drew close as well, an urgency between them. "Order yourself a Flaming Kalashnikov. It's a calling card." Obadiah glanced down the hall as Nick Fury's footsteps approached. "And I am sorry, Tony, for what it's worth."

"Time to go, Mr. Stark."

Perhaps it was what strange words the two had shared or the migraine. Perhaps it was the haunting and knowing smile Obadiah gave him as Tony left, but that also could have been his own imagination. Maybe it was the pressing interrogation they had just shared. Whatever it was, Tony followed Fury down the long corridor feeling vaguely unsettled. The sensation lingered even as he settled into the leather chair on his private jet to return back to California, unescorted this time.

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: Mmm... a flaming kalashnikov. I could totally go for one of those right now.


	12. Resonate

**DUMPSHOCK - RESONATE**

"He's asking for you, Miss."

Pepper Potts had spent the better part of a half hour yawning and studying the swirling patterns of cream in her steadily cooling coffee. The hours had dragged on for the woman, blurring into what seemed like a never ending stretch of waiting. Occasionally, the waiting would be broken by a quick coffee break, or a small and inconsequential update from a doctor or nurse before returning to monotony. That is, until this came out of the blue.

Pepper almost dropped the cup right out of her hands when the doctor told her. It took her a moment to regroup, smoothing her wrinkled shirt and skirt before giving a quick nod. Pepper followed in a daze as the doctor led her to a private room where Rhodey reclined in a stark, white bed, sandbagged in, a stiff collar wrapped about his neck. His eyes were closed in Pepper had never seen him look so tired. She approached slowly, almost timidly, afraid of waking him from some well needed and well deserved rest. As she drew near, his eyes opened, yet, the colonel did not move. The woman's heart fell.

"Hey," Pepper breathed, taking his hand in hers and squeezing the limp, almost lifeless appendage.

Rhodes gave a tired smile, small and tight, as if the effort were too great. "Hey, yourself."

Without releasing his hand, Pepper reached behind her to pull up a chair and sit beside her friend. "How you feeling?"

"How do you think?"

Pepper winced at it the lament, but she'd deserved it, really, for asking such a foolish question. "It'll be alright, James." Something wet gathered at the corner of her eye; she flashed as wide of a smile as possible to conceal it but knowing how forced and awkward it must have looked."You'll be up and out of here in no time." She glanced to the door; Pepper wasn't any good at this. "I'm going to call Tony. He's going to want to know how you're doing."

"Will he...?"

The woman beaming, guessing at the unfinished question. "He'll probably run right down here to see you himself."

Rhodes's face tightened. "No."

"No what?"

Rhodes closed his eyes. "Not yet."

The woman furrowed her eyebrows. "James?"

"I can't, Pepper. I can't see him. Not after..."

She put a tender hand upon his shoulder, suddenly afraid and holding her breath. "It's okay."

"No... just not yet."

The woman shook her head. "Rhodes..."

"Pepper, please." The man sounded determined, and almost angry. "He... he did this to me. I just. I can't look him in the eyes and hear his excuse. It's always an excuse with Tony. The doctors, they said..."

But he didn't have to say it. One look in his somber eyes, and Pepper understood everything that Rhodes couldn't bring himself to say yet. To utter those words would make it real, concrete, and unchanging. To keep them held tight, they were dark dreams and nothing more. She leaned in and placed a tender, delicate kiss upon his forehead.

xxxx

_"You've got to find a runner bar."_

Obadiah Stane could not have been any more cryptic if he'd tried. Tony let the words turn over and over again in his mind as he walked into his own shop and settled down behind his computer. A runner bar. Certainly, granted the biker/punk nature to the two mercenaries, the second word was most likely an apt description. A bar. Runner bars were likely places that Kitten and Wedge met with their so-called Johnson's to receive instructions or negotiate payments for their unsavory services. There could be hundreds of such bars in Malibu, and that was providing Kitten and Wedge actually kept their activities limited to only that city. It was far more likely, granted the nature of their business, the Kitten and Wedge were not entirely creatures of habit. Obadiah had left Tony with perhaps thousands of possibilities of dive bars up and down the California seaboard.

Worse, Tony had to grudgingly acknowledge. Mitsuhama Computer Technologies had obviously funded Kitten's little mission to SETEC. The multimillion dollar electronics and robotics company had private, research installations and factories all over the world, along with a fleet of jets and a bevy of resources that could even rival Stark's own pool. Taiga Mitsuhama could have flown both Wedge and Kitten in from anywhere in the country and even provided them with their shiny little Ducati. And even Stane had admitted to hiring Kitten once before.

That thought darkened Tony's contemplations. Stark Industries had employed Kitten for something. Obadiah hadn't told him what, but, granted the girl's occupation, nothing good. Assassin. Corporate saboteur. Who knew what Obadiah Stane had paid Kitten to do for the company.

Something nagged at the back of Tony's mind. Her knapsack. He'd taken it but forgotten where it had been dropped in the confusion of the impromptu battle in his home. Tony rose and backtracked, retracing his steps that day back down the tunnel. The canvas bag sat where he'd dropped it on the floor after liberating the Mark III helm from it, down at the very end of the tunnel. Tony picked up the bag and held it cautiously to avoid ruining any trace evidence on the satchel that might point to her true identity.

Carefully, Tony turned the thing inside out on the work table, spreading the contents out to survey them. Kitten, it seemed by her bag, lived a relatively normal and painfully bland lifestyle. There was a pack of cinnamon Orbit gum, a tube of cherry Chapstick, a wallet with some cash but no credit cards nor driver's license in it, and a few innocuous feminine items. Nothing out of the ordinary for a lady's purse, until the glossy, black box tumbled out along with a book.

The smooth, black box, Tony left alone on the table while he studied the book. It was an ancient and well-loved paperback book, worn and weathered. Its yellowed pages were dog-eared here and there at different intervals. The spine had split right down the middle and almost effectively patched with a strip of black duct tape that barely held the decrepit thing together. The ink had faded in spots, and the cover had been water damaged and ripped beyond recognition aside from a dark, olive green color with a white-yellow line running down the middle. Someone had read this book, and often, most likely Kitten carting it about with her in that aged canvas sack.

Tony clicked on a light and squinted immediately, feeling rather photosensitive. He glanced to his watch. His last dose of pain meds had been well over six hours ago in the dark sublevel prison to Central. Tony downed another pair before leaning close over the book to study one of the dog-eared pages.

_"Which path would you walk- the way of hard truths, or the way of fine lies?"_

_"Truths," he said. "I've come too far for more lies."_

_She looked sad. "There will be a price then," she said._

The phrases that caught Tony's eyes were poetic yet simply put, both beautifully eloquent and painfully forward. Tony scowled before flipping through more of the pages, letting his eyes skim over the words and catching a few of interest here and there. Once in a while, he would pause and hold a spot to read what little of the watered pages remained legible as he allowed a faint fog to drift over his mind from the medication with each passing page.

_"There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are going whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to go. And that is what makes them dangerous."_

The once weapon's industrialist in Stark gave a silent nod to the unknown author before allowing more pages to slip through his fingers until he came to the title page. _American Gods _by Neil Gaiman. The very same book Obadiah Stane had been reading in the basement of Central. Yet, while Obadiah's copy had been brand new, pristine and perfect, this copy looked utterly ancient and tattered. Tony turned it over in his hands, contemplating the unusual coincidence before noting to himself that there were no coincidences in this world.

The man set the book down on the work table before turning his attention to the black lacquer box resting on the table. He studied it carefully without touching the thing before noticing fingerprints on sleek surface. Tony expertly dusted the case with a bit of graphite powder from his things before shaking off the excess and scanning the prints.

"Jarvis, run prints against all active databases." Tony waved his hand. "FBI, CIA, SHIELD, whatever you can get your electronic hands on."

"Right away, sir."

Tony's phone rang shrilly, and, upon seeing the name, he answered immediately as he pulled open the lid to the box to find a fat stack of crisp, new hundred dollar bills. "Miss Potts?"

"Tony?" She sounded breathy, perhaps worried or depressed; it touched the man. "Are you alright? Where are you? Where have you been?"

"New York. Don't ask. And I've been better." She drew in a deep breath, so much so that even Tony could hear it over the phone; it sent a shiver down his spine. "Pepper, what is it?" He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. "Is it Rhodey?"

"Yes. He's awake."

Tony smiled madly in relief, already in motion to grab his keys. "I'll be down there-"

"Tony, wait." There was a sadness to her voice, an emotion seldom heard in the woman in all the time he'd known her. "There's something you need to know."

He froze. "Pepper? What is it?"

"The doctors, they don't think he's going to walk again and... he... he doesn't want to see you." He could almost hear her stifling her own tears. "He says he's not ready to see you. Not yet."

The computer screens and lights flickered overhead as electricity shot down his veins; Tony's jaw struggled to work. "Pepper, I didn't do that. Something was in the suit with me, some kind of a program or a virus." When she didn't answer at first, the inventor assumed the woman had tuned him out. "Pepper, I would never hurt you two. Never. You've got to believe me on this one."

"I do." The woman blurted out.

"You do?" The shock and surprise in Tony's voice startled even himself before he steadied and corrected the blunder. "Of course you do."

"Yes. The Tony Stark I know isn't a murderer." Pepper paused, and Tony pictured her closing her eyes to gather her thoughts and find the right words. "But I don't think James knows that."

Something fired in the back of Tony's mind, and the man glanced up to see a match listing on his computer terminal, flashing on screen. "Pepper, I've got to go."

"Wait, Tony. Are you alright?"

"Can't talk right now."

Tony had already hung up the cellphone on Pepper before she could argue otherwise. His eyes and mind were already focused intently upon the name and face before him on the computer. It was the girl, Kitten, only slightly younger, in an old driver's license photograph. Her hair was shorter and neater, and her face wasn't nearly as sharp or bitter seeming. Her eyes looked kinder and softer. Underneath that, though, it was Kitten, without a doubt. The name listed her as Amatista Labropoulos of Sandy Springs, Georgia, born October 12th, 1986. It drew up her traffic record with not a single offense on it. Even as Tony dawned on the thought, school records and transcripts for Amatista Labropoulos at the Georgia Tech came up, showing her to be a decent, if not model representative for the college. Medical charts and records came up afterwards, listing only a few minor burns as the worst medical treatment she'd ever received.

However, what had stopped Tony dead in his conversation with Pepper was one file in particular. It had been scanned from a hard copy that apparently originated from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. A death certificate listing that one Amatista Labropoulos had died on December 24th, 2002 from a single gunshot wound to the head at close range. Tony shook his head in disbelief as more files appeared. Photographs from the investigation and the autopsy, all showing Kitten lying out on the medical examiner's slab, a bloody mass at the side of her head.

Something itched at the back of Tony's mind; a strange sort of tickle. He looked closer at the files, feeling something faint bothering him. Something wasn't quite right about the photographs and the files.

"It's been doctored up."

"Sir?" Jarvis inquired.

Tony shook his head, pointing at something to the file, and watching, curiously, as the image distorted while his finger drew near. "These files had been edited. It's a good job, too." He couldn't help but stare at the corpse in the crime scene that was supposedly Amatista Labropoulos as he wondered who had really been murdered that Christmas Eve. "Pull up electronic watermarks and any file history on this."

"Right away."

Tony settled in behind his desk to work on the computer file as Jarvis provided him with the appropriate watermark information so he could adjust the images back to their original content. The crime scene photographs had been adulterated, and with a precise hand. Yet Tony somehow instinctively knew where to look in the raw data of the file, where to strip away and reveal the underlying image. He peeled away at different layers, down to the core, until Tony was left with a chilling realization. The pictures hadn't just been doctored or edited. He sat back, looking at nothing else but a wireframe, like the gothic lolita in his HUD smartlink, a complete fabrication.

Tony leaned close, sensing something else there, and pushing deeper in the source code for the files. A program had been laced in with the files and, as the inventor studied the source code, he saw that the program shifted the files from one server to another after a precise time frame. Just long enough to establish that the files existed, while never long enough to draw attention to the file, thus giving the consistent impression that one Amatista Labropoulos was very much dead. The program effectively covered the editor's tracks. With so much routing, it would be difficult to find the ISP and, thusly, the location the files had come from, but not impossible.

"Clever little bastard," Tony muttered to himself, feeling a small twinge of jealousy at something so sophisticated in execution but so plain in concept, noting the maddening genius to Jonas's hacking skills. "Jarvis, anyway you can pinpoint a server of origin?"

Jarvis processed the command. "No, sir."

"No?" Tony raised an eyebrow. "Encrypted routing?"

"No, sir." The artificial intelligence paused in seeming contemplation. "There is no ISP of origin."

The inventor felt his jaw twitching. "No ISP of origin? Is it a virtual ISP?"

They weren't uncommon anymore. Servers often rented out part of their space and access to smaller companies like leasing offices. It was possible one of those renters or access brokers had been used to start the file on its web hopping journey before the company went under and the ISP died. Tony found his own mind searching, probing, looking in vain for something desperate out there in the vast internet.

"No, sir. There just is no ISP origin."

xxxx

A remote chat opened its self on the desktop, popping up amid all the other files with a small and only mildly obtrusive beep to announce its presence.

_"Objective completed. Potential targets within the range assessed."_

_"And?"_

_"Confirmed Class 1: _

_Dymas Antinou (LOCATED)_

_Jonathan Andrew Frederick (DECEASED - DUMPSHOCK)_

_Amatista Labropoulos (RESURFACED)_

_Michael Lee (DECEASED - DUMPSHOCK)_

_Kita Elizabeth St. Paul (DECEASED - RESISTED ARREST)_

_Confirmed Class 2: _

_Cyan Beauchamp (LOCATED)_

_Raquel Garcia (LOCATED)_

_Ivy Heather Maddox (INCAPACITATED - DUMPSHOCK)_

_Shawn-Patrick Murphy (LOCATED)_

_Vincent Eric Quinn (DECEASED - RESISTED ARREST)_

_Leon Mark Robbins (DECEASED - NATURAL CAUSES)."_

_"Excellent."_

_"Further orders?"_

_"Investigate potential Class 2; Anthony Edward Stark."_

The remote, encrypted chat disconnected.

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: Yes, _American Gods _is a real book. Yes, Neil Gaiman is THE man. If you haven't read it, you must. It's simply breathtaking... if you can get past that one scene about thirty pages in with the goddess prostitute. Icky icky! However, we are getting to some interesting things, I assure you.


	13. Wifi

**DUMPSHOCK - WIFI**

"What'll it be?"

Another night, another dive bar in the barrens of California. A week had already passed. Time slipped by Tony Stark as he slipped by the world, ducking into seedy bar after sleazy joint night after night. There were rumors of him being spotted here and there, in biker bars, and even a couple of photographs graced the tabloids of Tony Stark becoming altercated in small drunken brawls, when he'd really been trying to help overtaxed bouncers usher rowdy people out of the bar. Only once or twice, when he'd let his drinking go too far and heard too many snide comments from his fellow bar patrons had Tony actually been a combatant and been thrown out for it to nurse bruises and cuts, knowing his opponents went home licking their own fair share of wounds.

Yet, it was a necessary evil, as there were no other leads in the matter regarding Kitten, Wedge, or Jonas. Tony had already checked for any living relatives of Amatista Labropoulos. They were all deceased and interred in a family plot in Oregon. He'd gone police reports and registration records and found not a single Ducati Hypermotards in black stolen or missing. Mitsuhama's registered fleet of vehicles did not include one, and the rare few that were in California were all registered under the name of a few other millionaires that Tony had known well enough to call and check in on. He used the pretense of thinking about buying a Ducati for himself, and found that all of those motorcycles were accounted for. There were no police records for Amatista Labropoulos, nor anyone under the alias of "Kitten." He'd even checked to see if the hundred dollar bills Taiga Mitsuhama had paid the mercenaries in where marked. Nothing. Not a scrap of evidence save the few things he'd found in the knapsack.

There was the book, and, when Tony had the right mind to, he would read a page or two of Neil Gaiman's work, curious as to what had drawn both Obadiah Stane and Kitten into the work. Yet the inventor hardly had the patience nor the heart to really read the damned thing, using the wonders of Wikipedia to locate a plot summary. The author wrote of the ex-convict - Shadow- who was granted an early parole by the untimely demise of his adulterous wife, who eventually became a contracted bodyguard for the god - Mr. Wednesday - in a brewing war between the gods of old and the gods of new. He felt the same, small nagging draw of the book at the mere idea of gods and monsters mingling right alongside average people, musing on what a powerful, pyrotechnic creature like Kitten actually thought or said about such a thing.

It had been a rough week, to say the least. Tony hardly spent time at home anymore, and, when he did, it was only to crash for a while on the couch in the shop. He would arrive home after the sun rose, wake in the afternoon, and leave before sunset to hit all the local bars, shifting himself to a nocturnal schedule. The work area had become his home, while the upstairs remained abandoned and vacant, save the bathroom and shower. Tony couldn't bring himself to go up those steps more than necessary. He had only showered twice in the long week, and, though his stomach gnawed at him for hours on end, Tony could hardly bring himself to eat. At the sight of food, Tony felt instantly put off his appetite. At the end of the week, the millionaire felt like he was running on empty.

When he had looked in the mirror that afternoon, Tony hardly recognized the gaunt, pallid man staring back at him. He seemed older somehow by the whole thing, dead and aged beyond his years.

It wasn't that Tony had intended on anything like this. Far from it. He would occasionally summon the energy and the heart to do something about it. Shave. Force some food down his throat. Toy a bit with notes in the lab. However, after a short time, either his thoughts would stray to Rhodes, or Pepper would stop in to check on him.

In the past, the woman had been hellbent on his previous invention fits to keep her employer in line, this time, Pepper let him wallow. She used to belt him with stern words and quick verbal jabs to keep Stark in line. Now, Pepper just wafted in and out with the cool ocean breeze, unable to stay for long between her worry for the two men she cared about. She barely breathed a word to Tony, almost as though she'd become a thin ghost of a woman. She generally seemed to either arrive during the day, when Stark sleep off the effects of another night of drinking on the couch downstairs, or at night while he was out, drinking as a cover to find the people he needed to punish. Yet he knew when his assistant had been there; she made her presence known in small ways. If she arrived while he slumbered, Tony often awoke to the sound of the upstairs door closing, a warm blanket draped over him lovingly, a glass of water sitting on the table across from him, and two white tablets from his pain medications and antibiotics set beside it. While he was out, she had cleaned and straightened the upstairs, bringing down parts of the Mark II and Mark III suits. Tony didn't see Pepper anymore, and he missed her in those tiny gestures of affection of hers.

And Rhodes? Tony never saw Rhodes now. Even if he wasn't still barred from his once friend's hospital room by Pepper's watchful vigils, Tony wasn't certain he could see Rhodes now. Not after what had happened, and not with the knowledge that Rhodes might have blamed him. Perhaps that was what had spurned Tony to drink to recklessness some nights.

"Hey, dude. What'll it be?"

Tony nudged the empty shot glass on the bar before him, dredging himself up from his silent reverie as the bartender folded his arms across his chest. "A flaming kalashnikov, if you please."

The burly, tattooed bartender raised an eyebrow before answering gruffly, "Never heard of it."

It was the same answer everywhere. Tony was certain why he bothered asking anymore. At the rate he was going, the inventor could go to a hundred bars a night and never find Kitten, Jonas, or Wedge with the downright stupid plan of just asking for a drink. The first couple of nights, Tony had been hopeful, but that had been a naive dream to think that he could just have things so simple. No. Not Tony Stark. Tony Stark, millionaire murderer who had crippled his best friend, did not deserve anything handed to him so easily anymore like it had been the rest of his sad waste of a life. He deserved to suffer, fight, and scrap for every small thing.

Yet, there was something to the way the bartenders answered him, to the way the bouncers kept a sharp eye upon him at all times. It was like they all know. Tony recognized in his own mind that it was probably just sleep deprivation the mix of alcohol and painkillers that had placed such paranoid delusional thoughts into his mind. The inventor forced himself to acknowledge that even he, the great drunkard, had no idea what a flaming kalashnikov was, aside from the obvious smartass response of dousing a kalashnikov in fuel and lighting it ablaze.

Tony wasn't even certain he'd like the damned drink when he finally got one.

Tony sighed, shrugged, and put a twenty down on the bar, more than enough for his single shot. The night was young, and, while he'd already checked three bars before this one, there were still a few places on this dank little strip for him to check. He stuffed his hands in his pockets as he proceeded to the next bar.

This one seemed promising, yet all of them had. It had no name, proclaiming merely that it slung the best "hair of the dog that bit ya" in all of California. Tony highly doubted it considering the selection of fine liquors awaiting him in his own, personal bar at home. Yet, still, he pushed into the bar, let himself be carded at the door by a hulking man who could have passed for Andre the Giant in another life before settling down at the bar. The place was dark and the air think with smoke as though public smoking laws didn't exist in a place like this except as a blatant joke.

Another tattooed bartender took his blessed time with what appeared to be a few of the regulars before sliding down the line to the stool Tony now occupied. "Name your poison."

"Flaming Kalashnikov," Tony replied flatly and steadily, forgoing another drink and cutting right to the chase this time.

The bartender gave a queer nod. "You sure you don't just want a something like Gorilla Balls or Jaeger Bomb?" Tony nodded, and the bartender glanced to the side, just off of Tony's shoulder. "Can't convince you to have a nice little This Shot Will Fuck You Up?"

"Flaming Kalashnikov," the inventor repeated sternly this time.

The man sighed and began to mix a drink below the counter. Tony peered over the edge, curious now, about what was in this fabled drink. Kalashnikov vodka went in first, followed by a chaser of Everclear to rest on top of it. The bartender frowned, patting his pockets until he located a small packet and tore it open. Tony felt his interest pique when he noticed familiar label to a Poprocks packet. Then, with a solemn air, the bartender set the shot down before Stark.

The millionaire furrowed his eyebrows. "I thought it was supposed to be flaming."

"'Tis," a sinuous voice crooned behind his ear. A lighter snapped to life beside Tony, illuminating the dark features of a regal, ebony beauty as she slid up beside him. "It be a flamin' kalish-nee-kov, after all."

A heavy Creole accent dripped from every note of her words, except for the bludgeoned "kalashnikov," but Tony hardly noticed that. He was entranced by her as the woman gently tipped the lighter to the glass. The Everclear immediately ignited, burning brightly in the dark bar. The Poprocks beneath that snapped and sizzled with the flame. Now that he looked he could see more of the curved, refined details to the woman, with her hair bundled up and bound under a royal purple scarf. An almost ethnic dress in yellow and purple sheathed her curvaceous frame, but Tony couldn't place the jagged patterns. She had the graceful but muscular build of a warrior, an Amazon tore from the pages of myths. Neil Gaiman's thoughts on gods and monsters walking around in human flesh and right alongside normal people trickled into Tony's mind as he witnessed the odd display from the woman beside him.

"So, you be lookin' fer a runner?" the beauty inquired, almost casually as she ran her fingertips over the curves of her bare collarbones in a provocative display.

"Perhaps."

The woman narrowed her eyes and placed a cold gaze upon Tony that could stop any heart. "Ya don't be comin' inta a bar orderin' dat drink an' not be lookin' for a runner." Tony shrugged in neither admission nor denial. "Ya've never hired a runner before, 'ave ya?"

Tony shook his head flatly, turning his gaze to the drink as the Everclear burned, turned blue, and extinguished its self. "Not ever."

"Who sent you?" the woman demanded threateningly.

"Mr. Johnson sent me," the millionaire replied, cool as ice and just as slick.

"Who are you?" the woman asked.

The inventor noticed that the bartender took a quick step to the side. Tony paid cautious heed to the way the man's hand lingered at the edge of the bar, hovering there, most likely in quick reach of a shotgun, bar bat, or other weapon hidden just out of sight. It upped the anti on this little game of theirs.

Tony gave another shrug, enjoying the game. "Why, Mr. Johnson, of course."

The woman nodded briskly; he'd passed whatever sort of a test this was. "What you be needin' done?"

"No." Tony gave a solemn and authoritative shake of his head, the same one he'd wrangled unruly board of director meetings with. "I only talk details with the runner."

The woman frowned and stiffened, but suddenly relaxed and smiled warmly, almost too warmly for Stark's taste, like a cat with a mouse caught in its teeth. "An' who ya be wantin'?"

"Kitten."

Tony had half been expecting the woman's face to fall when he named the girl, but the woman hardly flinched. "It be expensive."

Tony smirked to himself. "I have the money."

"One thousand cash up front as deposit for me ta arrange such a meetin'. Nonrefundable." When the millionaire didn't flinch, the woman added, "Now."

Tony nodded, seeing that as well within his personal resources. He reached into his wallet and handed out the cash. The woman immediately turned it over to the bartender and sat beaming at Stark in a pervasive, stalking way as the tattooed man counted the bills. He quickly nodded to the woman and pocketed the money for her.

The bartender spoke for the woman as she reached out a finger to stroke Tony's shoulder and arm. "You are to address yourself only as Mr. Johnson, and you will address her only as Kitten. If anything should befall either of you, we assume full deniability."

"Of course."

The woman grinned devilishly before jumping off her stool. "We'll be in touch."

Tony handed her a small scrap of paper with the numbers to a brand new cell phone that would be disposed of promptly after this whole mess was over. "My number." The woman smiled and stuffed the scrap of paper down her dress in between her ample breasts before turning to walk away; Tony blurted out, "Wait, when will you...?"

The barman almost snorted as though it were the stupidest question in the world, tossing his head in the woman's direction as she slunk off into the dark as though seeking new prey. "Sister Cyanide will call you when she's got a line on your girl."

The millionaire shrugged at that and hit the shot, hammering it back and slamming the glass on the wooden counter. The man let the searing mix streak down his throat with a burning he hadn't been expecting. He hadn't been expecting any of this, but it was a pleasant turn of events. Sister Cyanide would fine Kitten for him, and, then, Tony could exact the revenge he so desperately needed for Rhodes. And oh how sweet it would be to feel Kitten's or Jonas's neck crush under his fingers with or without the help of his exosuits.

As it turned out, Tony Stark liked the Flaming Kalashnikov very much.

xxxx

Pepper Potts had been watching her employer backslide down an alcohol induced tailspin. She constantly checked with Jarvis to assess Stark's mental status, coming up with the same answers again and again. All signs pointed to depression and a chemical dependence upon alcohol, but nothing much else changed, really. Pepper had secretly suspected as much since his return from captivity. It was almost like the Tony she had known right after he came from from Afghanistan, secretive and lurking in the dark of his lab. She knew he had to let this all out before he could be himself again.

Still, it surprised her when Pepper when she returned from the hospital later that evening to check on things that she saw Tony Stark slumped on the couch in the shop. She checked her watch, surprised it was still nighttime. Tony hadn't been in his own home at night in days; he'd spent his nights out drinking in god knows what hole in wall bars. It brought her some small comfort that he'd come home so early that night, stirring a slim hope that, perhaps, Tony was coping with what had happened to Rhodes. The woman carefully untied and removed his shoes and set them beside the couch before pulling a blanket over him.

Pepper allowed herself to smile as she placed a tender kiss upon his forehead as she had for Rhodes just an hour or so ago as he had drifted back to sleep. "G'night, Mr. Stark. Sweet dreams."

xxxx

Kitten hated very few things in the world, but the few things she did had were loathed with an intense and almost insidious passion.

For example, Kitten hated the color orange. Everything orange. She had, at one point, loved orange. It had been one of the choice colors of her favorite holiday, Halloween, and Kitten held many fond memories of pumpkin carving with drunk friends. Once, she and her little coterie had even carved a series of pumpkins for the front stoop of their rental house featuring all of the main characters from Tim Burton's _The Nightmare Before Christmas_, each on their own pumpkin, from Jack Skellington down to Zero the ghost dog. Now, orange was a color to be avoided at all costs, which is why it particularly irked Kitten to find that a rust colored and golden embroidered duvet had been draped over her at some point. She quickly kicked the offending item to the floor upon noticing it, looking down upon the thing with the disdain deserved by venomous snakes.

Kitten also particularly abhorred the notion of finding herself in a strange place, which is how she awoke. The last place she recalled being had been the Ale & Wench, amid a blaze of her own fire. Now, she found herself in a cool, dark living room, the shades drawn tight. A television played softly in the corner, still on Cartoon Network and showing something about a house full of imaginary friends. Bookshelves lined every open space of wall, crammed with all sorts of books, new and ancient, as well as bottles and jars of all sorts of strange things and dried flowers. The room looked homey and cozy. It unsettled Kitten for a moment, raising her hackles, but, then, she diffused as a white cat jumped into her lap and mewed right in her face.

This was no place to be frightened or confused. Kitten knew this place, the cat, and its owner well. Sister Cyanide. The woman practically ran a half-way house for Kitten and her kind when the going got rough, but for a price, of course. Everything and everyone had their own price, Sister Cyanide included. Wedge must have brought her here after everything went bad at the club with Stark. The knowledge, however, did not completely dispel the unshakable feeling of annoyance at coming to there. It brought her only a small measure of fleeting comforting.

Then, there was the fact that her things were missing. Kitten glanced about and noticed her satchel was no where in sight, along with all of her possessions. Most importantly, her book had gone missing along with her purse. Kitten could always make more money, that wasn't an issue. But her book. It had been with her for so very long now, that Kitten couldn't imagine going a day without reading a few pages. That would have to be replaced immediately.

Kitten hated being injured. She sat up slowly and hesitantly, testing her aching muscles as she moved. Her shoulder felt dull but ached miserably. The movement drew a pained grimace from the girl, which elicited a hiss as stitches in her cheek pulled along their neat line. Yet she had to get up, to move about. Injury was weakness, a flaw Kitten could ill afford. A runner down was a runner dead, and Kitten would never allow herself to go down so easily. Kitten gently probed the area about her cheek and her shoulder to explore the damage and assess any potential issues it could cause her.

Yet, above all else, Kitten hated three distinct people in the world. Obadiah Stane. Nicholas Aurelius. And Tony Stark. She never truly liked the Mitsuhamas, but they gave her the tools and the money she needed to finalize her own plans. Stane, Stark, and Aurelius. As Kitten rubbed her neatly bandaged shoulder, she counted them off again and again in her head, thinking of all the things she would do to each of them in turn and of how lovely it would be when she did. She flexed the muscles in her hand as an eagle screeched in her ears at the very thought of putting those three bastards in their place.

A towering, ebony woman stepped into the room cautiously from a far door. She brought with her a cup of steaming liquid, coffee by the smell of it. The beautiful Amazon knew her clients and knew them well. One hand toyed with the frayed edge of a purple wrap that bound her head and trailed down her spine. She set the much appreciated brew before Kitten on the table, letting the mercenary take it for herself. Kitten savored every gulp as she emptied the mug.

"Feelin' better?"

There was a faint accent to Sister Cyanide's voice, something vaguely Creole peppered her words. The woman never told Kitten were she'd originally come from, nor why she had eventually moved to California; then again, the girl never shared her own tale with Sister Cyanide. They had an understanding and a business relationship, and that suited Kitten just fine. However, for everyone who hadn't earned as much loyalty and, dare she think friendship, from Sister Cyanide as Kitten, the woman amped up her accent, sounding like something dredged from Miss Cleo Psychic Hotline commercials with a sprinkling of Anne Rice.

Kitten nodded slowly , as she took the cup and sipped the brew, feeling the tension slip from her muscles. "Much, Sister Cyanide." The girl set the cup down on the table carefully. "How long have I been out?"

"Couple of days. Ya push too hard, Kitten."

The girl rubbed her forehead. "I know."

"And you do it anyway," the dark woman said with a knowing, almost motherly smile, proud and beaming.

Kitten shrugged wearily, a tired sort of gesture, wincing slightly as the muscles in her shoulder tightened. "Someone's got to fight the good fight." She gave a small, staccato giggle. "I don't see your sorry ass out there."

Sister Cyanide slapped the girl on her shoulder. "Well, someone has to be patching you up when you go an' do stupid things." The pair shared a laugh before Cyanide hugged Kitten and said strangely, "I had an intriguin' visitor at the bar askin' about ya, luv. Ordered your favorite little drink."

"Yeah?" There was no excitement at the thought of another Johnson in her life at the moment; instead, the word was truly just a flat indication for Sister Cyanide to proceed.

"Tony Stark." Sister Cyanide smoothed her purple wrap like a bird preening, proud of the subtle tension and set jaw she noticed in Kitten in reaction. "Asked a few questions about you." The woman waited for the mercenary to say something, but Kitten kept quiet. "Feelin' up to visitors?"

"Visitors?"

And, then, a hand came down on her good shoulder, soft and caring, still making the girl almost jump clean out of her skin. She whipped about, palms up and mouth open, ready to hurl either a blow or a deadly insult depending on who was behind her. Her face instantly softened and her hands dropped to her lap as soon as she saw those youthful, innocent features of the person before her. Kitten threw her arms about him, ignoring the aches and pains in her body as she drew him close, the first time she'd been able to in so many years. She drank in his scent, mingling with her own aroma of tinder and lightning.

"Jonas..." she breathed.

He gently rubbed her back, reassuringly and warmly. "Kitten." He paused, breaking the embrace to stare into her dark eyes. "You need to be more careful."

"You've been listening to Wedge and Sister Cyanide, haven't you?" Kitten inquired, planting a hand on her hip.

Jonas smirked. "And so should you. You're not indestructible, y'know?" The boy ruffled her thick, dark, curled hair playfully, poking his tongue out. "You're... important. You're special."

"Yeah..."

Jonas watched the girl retreat into herself, into her own thoughts before drawing in a deep breath. "So, what do we do now?"

Kitten grinned madly. "We get my guns. We get _them_."

"Yeah?" One of Jonas's eyebrows cocked.

"Starting with Tony Stark." The girl snarled the name, her lip curling in distaste.

The boy shook his head. "No." Jonas chewed on his lip. "Not yet." When Kitten darted a shocked and angry look at her friend, the boy sighed. "He's otaku, Kitten. We need more information, what he's capable of, before we go after him." As the girl rolled her eyes, Jonas grew stern. "I'm not going up against him unless I know exactly what he's got up his sleeve."

"Fine." Kitten turned her attention back to her hostess. "Sister Cyanide, you told me he came here tonight, right?" When the Creole nodded, the girl smiled. "I need your help."

"But of course, child."

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: Sorry for the delay, as always. I had a precalc test this week. My first test in college since returning for my second degree, now in Marine Sciences (which has made me highly tempted to write some CSI fics revolving around Mandalay Bay's Shark Reef Aquarium!) So, how about a two-for-the-price-of-one day? I promise, we're getting to answers... if you haven't already figured them out for yourself.


	14. Access Denial

**DUMPSHOCK - ACCESS DENIAL**

A week dragged painfully by without any word from the elusive Sister Cyanide. It had been almost unbearable for Tony to just sit back and wait for some update from the Creole on Kitten's whereabouts, but he had no other choice. All he could do was lay low and keep quiet, hoping that the phone would ring and that tragically cliched accent would croon to him a meeting place and time.

Yet, the long time served as a bit of a blessing as well. It served to sober Tony, despite the copious amounts of alcohol he continued to pour into himself on a daily basis. One of Tony's college friends had commented during their studies that Tony was a "functioning alcoholic with a flexible definition of functioning." The joke had stuck with him, even after all those years. The man drank to total excess, to the point of pure oblivion, working through the drunken blurs until he passed out for a few hours of sleep.

Tony needed the research, needed a plan. Tony loved having a plan, multiple ones, in fact. So long as he had something up his sleeve, the inventor could do anything, as proven with the original inception of his exosuits. Whenever his mind started to drift from the task at hand, Stark closed his eyes and pictured Rhodes, broken and ruined, on his own floor, until bile splashed at the back of his throat. Once or twice, when he'd helped himself to too much liquor, Tony had gone too far, to the point where he couldn't force back down his own vomit. The inventor mentally wrote it off as alcohol induced, his body naturally rejecting the poisons he continued to drink down in massive gulps and hammered shots.

After he'd gotten back from the chance encounter with Sister Cyanide, Tony had crawled onto the couch in the basement and closed his eyes. Tony had been hoping that the Flaming Kalashnikov was the calling card for Kitten herself, granted her pyrotechnic displays, instead of the Amazon he'd accidentally introduced himself to. Yet, this was a grand opportunity. Tony didn't have much of a plan when he waltzed into that bar, but Sister Cyanide's delay had offered him the time to formulate one. It brought him enough small comfort to sleep soundly through the night for the first time in days.

The next morning, still hungover and aching in his side, Tony took his pain medications and settled in to research. First thing was first; Kitten. Or Amatista Labropoulos. Or whoever she was. He started with the last records of her, as a Georgia Tech student. She'd skipped ahead a grade in high school and gone to college a bit early, not unlike Tony Stark at M.I.T. Tony phoned a friend of his who was still on the physics faculty. His friend recalled the student and put Tony in touch with another teacher, a Professor LeMarc, who chaired a class in theoretical physics. Tony laid a careful story of just discovering that Amatista Labropoulos may have been related to him and finding out of her untimely demise, both factors driving him to find out anything he could about dearly departed cousin Amatista.

"Why, of course I remember Amatista!" LeMarc sounded excited for a moment before lamenting, "Such a shame. Such a waste." His voice retrained a compassion after that, and a nostalgia. "Amatista was an odd kid, but she was a good student and a sweet girl. Funny, smart, and always lending a hand in labs. Good kid. She had some absolutely wild ideas that would have really done a number to the scientific community if she'd lived long enough to get published."

"Yeah?"

"Oh, yeah. I first met her after she started sitting in on Tech classes when she was just a high school freshman. By the end of the year, she was doing better than some of my regular students," LeMarc asserted. "I ended up helping her con her high school into letting her take physic classes as Tech for credit at her school."

The inventor scratched his chin, thinking about his own unusual college experiences, having graduated when he was just seventeen. "She was that promising of a student?"

"Just in physics and philosophy. Everything else, didn't interest her. Math. English. History. Statistics. It was like it all bored her clean out of her mind. But physics, theoretical physics." The professor stopped. "She was good."

"Theoretical only?"

"Yeah. Newtonian physics had no interest for her," the professor replied quickly. "If it couldn't be attached to philosophy or parapsychology, she didn't care. I told you she was an odd kid."

Tony nodded to himself on his end of the phone; if only LeMarc knew just how odd Amatista had grown up to be now. "What sort of things?"

"Well, before string theory got all muddled up, Amatista was all over that."

The inventor smirked to himself. String theory. Definitely not mathematics taught in your average high school. No wonder Amatista had gone out of her way to study the few classes she held credit for at Georgia Tech. String theory suggested that the tiniest building blocks of atoms were comprised of tiny loops oscillating at super high frequencies. An offshoot of string theory contested that because of this, everything in the world had its own, natural frequency underlying all else. Philosophical physicists went on to say that the frequency of an individual interacting with surrounding frequencies is what caused people to instinctively like or dislike something. It explained vibes and empathy as quite simply an attuning to the background "noise." Tony felt it was hardly science and scoffed at the idea quite openly after it had been kicked around in his own classes.

"Anything else you can tell me about my cousin?" Tony had to catch himself from hissing the word through his teeth.

"Actually, if you want, I saved her last paper. I could send a copy to you. It kind of struck a chord," LeMarc admitted while shuffling through something over the phone. "I couldn't just throw it away like so many other papers. It was too different, too out there. And with her being dead, an' all, it just didn't feel right." The professor chortled to himself. "Y'know, it's funny. These kids put so much effort and work into something they know I'm just going to recycle at the end of the semester. Kind of makes you feel bad about it."

Tony couldn't bring himself to a philosophical conversation yet, even about something as trivial. Nor did the inventor feel like making his own commentary on his own college term paper experiences- most of which had ended in Tony slinging a string of profanities at his professors. He just agreed and waiting patiently for the man to find the paper.

"Ah, gotcha!" LeMarc triumphantly announced. "_A Brief History of Unrecognized Universal Forces._" The professor must have heard Tony's disbelief. "I gave the freshman an open-ended essay assignment for midterm. Anything they wanted to write on. She picked magic."

"Sounds like a cop-out," Tony mused bitterly.

LeMarc conceded, "That's what I thought when I first heard her proposal, but she made a highly compelling argument. Amatista was a bit headstrong. Never did listen to anything but her own head."

_"Sounds like the Kitten I know," _the inventor thought solemnly.

LeMarc must had read Tony's silence as feeling insulted by his comment. "Anywho, Amatista was obsessed with three base forces to the universe that hadn't been cited. She called them Magic. Essence. And Resonance." Tony almost started at the last one, but LeMarc went on. "Magic was fairly self-explanatory. Essence, she claimed as the measure of a living being's lifeforce or soul. She claimed it powered Magic and was directly influenced by technology, particularly the unnatural alteration of the body with implants, prosthetics, and other devices. The lower the Essence, the less effective a force applied through Magic could be."

Tony contemplated that for a moment, his hands drifting up to the arc reactor in his chest. His fingers tapped the round disc. She hadn't know why he'd survived that night on the road, and neither had he. Perhaps this was the reason? The arc reactor had lowered his Essence and rendered some small portion of her magic useless? No. Magic didn't exist. The logical, rational part of his mind, the scientist in him overrode the part of him that wanted to give the theory a chance based off of his own observations of the girl. There was a trick to what Kitten did, a magician's sleight of hand or misdirection, allowing her to impress the illusion of magic on her audience and victims. It was her act that gave Kitten power over people purely by intimidation. Nothing more and most assuredly nothing less.

"And Resonance?" Tony pressed, intrigued by the connection back to SETEC.

The professor gave a huff. "She never got to that part. Amatista was murdered before she could finish her paper. I've only got a rough draft, and she only mentioned Resonance as an additional force in a note she wrote on the margin like an after thought."

The inventor shrugged, "Sketchy." He paused, wondering if he'd given away too much information to his words. "And downright ridiculous."

"Yeah, but she liked to point out the checks and balances of the four fundamental forces that hold subatomic particles together and repel them to keep atoms from collapsing in on themselves all at the same time." LeMarc flipped the page. "She rebuked accusations that these three forces were made up in her own paper. Ah, here's a good one. 'Up until the twentieth century, reality was everything humans could touch, smell, see, and hear. Since the initial publication of the charged electromagnetic spectrum, humans learned that what they can touch, smell, see, and hear is less than one millionth of reality.'"

"An old quote."

LeMarc sounded mildly pleased. "But a good one. While I couldn't give Amatista's rough draft any credit for validity, her audacity to point out that we only _decided _that a force called Magic doesn't exist when the possibility lingered out there was commendable. She went so far out of her way as to cite out the 'magical number.'"

"What, like the sign of the beast stuff?" Tony hung his head, nursing a slowly building headache at the prospects.

"No, no. The magical number seven, plus or minus two, is a theoretical limit to working memory." the professor explained.

"Hence the reason why important numbers are broken down into smaller groupings to encourage memory." Tony ruefully recalled his long forgotten phone numbers and the social security number that, truthfully, it was likely only Pepper Potts and the government accurately knew. "Like telephone and account numbers?"

"Correct. Amatista based her argument on the fact that, if humans were just too stupid to recall anything larger than maybe 9 digits, as well as so dumb to think that there wasn't anything else to reality beyond what we could physically interact with, who knew what was out there? I mean, she even pointed out the original criticism of Copernicus's heliocentric model of the solar system as an argument to her defense." The professor paused, gathering his thoughts and reining himself in.

LeMarc sounded impressed and proud of his own student, and Tony did have to admit that there was a mad sort of logic to it. Humans were, fundamentally, stupid creatures. They were easily broken and trained to perform on command. They fought their natural instincts and ignored what was right in front of their faces all the time. And, above all, the human body had evolved into a joke. Claws that were thin and brittle. Teeth that couldn't rip or tear at all. No fur, scales, or feathers to protect from the cold. Slow. Pathetic. Weak. Fragile. Prey. Tony Stark, in some of his more morose drinking moments, often considered the human species to be a cruel genetic joke.

"Take it you were going to give her an A?" Stark teased flatly.

"Like hell!" LeMarc blasted before calming once more. "Like I said, I couldn't give her any credit for the validity that these three forces _just_ so happen to exist without any proof of their existence or scientific evidence, but I had to give her credit for having the brass balls to formulate her hypothesis around the fact that humans are basically stupid creatures. She didn't take it well when I told her 'proof of possibility was not proof of actual existence.'"

"What'd she do?"

The professor sighed deeply. "Amatista was adamant about her topic. She wouldn't give it up. I told her if she could provide proof of existence to these theoretical forces of hers, then, she could continue with her paper." The professor laughed again. "I figured she would have given up on it, since there's no real way for her to prove this theoretical Magic or Essence of hers."

"Aw, wouldn't let her produce a rabbit from a hat as proof?" Tony quipped.

LeMarc chuckled a bit. "Nah. Turns out, she took it as a challenge and said she had an experiment devised to prove it. I told her to go ahead, that she had a week to prove me wrong or else she had to write a new project proposal. She spent that week holed up in the open labs working on her experiment."

The inventor smiled slightly to himself. His high school teachers had all fought tooth and nail to keep Tony's inventing streak and experimenting to a minimum and keep the fledgling inventor on the same course as their curriculum dictated. Each of those attempts met a similar failure as the boy soldiered on, blazing his own path. His college professors all learnt quite quickly that Tony Stark had a mind of his own that could not be tamed nor controlled by any threats of expulsion or dismal grades. He had spent many nights of his own in the labs at M.I.T. working to prove many a teacher wrong in their own theories and hypothesis. After quite a few members of the faculty had to endure the embarrassment of a direct slap to the face from a boy no older than seventeen, the professors steered rather clear of Tony. Amistata Labropoulos didn't sound all that different according to LeMarc's testimonial.

Tony mentally chastised himself. Amatista Labropoulos may have been a creature of his own heart, but that was well over four years ago. Now, she was Kitten, a dark and deadly thing of the night that killed for a living. They were nothing alike, and they would never be anything alike. She had become a murderer, using her skills and knowledge to destroy lives and do billions of dollars worth of damage, whereas Tony had turned to try to help people. That was until Rhodey...

The man refused to complete the thought, distracting himself by asking a further question of the professor. "So, what was her experiment?"

"No clue."

The inventor frowned in disappointment and frustration. "What were the results?"

"No idea," LeMarc answered uneasily. "She was murdered before she could bring her data and experimental design to me. Her laptop and her notes were confiscated by the police as evidence before I got to see her work."

The conversation wound down after that, leaving Tony with more questions than answers as LeMarc promised to mail a photocopy of the draft later in the week. Something had happened to Amatista Labropoulos before she could finish her essay topic. Tony knew it wasn't the "murder" that everyone else thought it was, but he couldn't place his finger on what had happened back then. What was it? There was no telling. But, whatever it was, it had turned Amatista Labropoulos from a normal, healthy, sane girl that the college professors had apparently enjoyed having as a student, into a hardened criminal, a mercenary and corporate assassin for hire. It had to have been something awful, and it had happened within the span of a short week.

After that, any and all leads on Kitten died.

That left Jonas. All Tony had was a basic description of the boy and a first name. Tony tried scoping out the web and any APBs from the police, CIA, and FBI, coming up dry. Jonas seemed a ghost, almost as much of a ghost as Kitten was. At least Kitten had a history. Jonas had nothing. Not one scrap of information. And, after all his searching, Tony felt just as uncertain and confused as he had been before, lost and without a bearing.

Tony pressed further into the idea of Resonance, Essence, and Magic, coming up short once more. Amatista Labropoulos either had one hell of a ghost writer inspiring her to those theories, or she was a philosophical genius, a bullshit artist worthy of Tony Stark's respect. Tony would have bet the house on the bullshit artist hypothesis.

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: Mmmm... again with the thickening plot. Hope you guys like your plot as thick as molasses on a cold winter day.


	15. Rendered Obsolete

**DUMPSHOCK - RENDERED OBSOLETE**

_Hands upon him and something burning, liquid, poured about the exterior of the socket. Swearing. Angry shouting over him. His head pounded, but darkness quickly retook him. _

_Wet. A frigid tank of water. His teeth chattered. Tony forced himself to focus. He struggled to lift his eyelids and look about. The water felt so damned cold again him, but the man couldn't find the energy to haul himself from the tank. His body slumped in the icy water. Someone sat at the side of the tub. A cool, damp cloth pressed against his fevered forehead. The doctor. The man stood, gesturing to someone off to the side. Several muscular hands reached into the steel vat, hauling him up and out of the water. Tony moaned, his body aching at the motion, but not a coherent word came out. The black of unconsciousness swallowed the millionaire again._

_Tony swam in a sea of dreams and fog until a sound drew him up again and back to the world of the waking. A humming. Melodious and solemn, a tune that sounded older than ages. It dredged him from the slumber that had claimed Tony for so very long as sensation slowly returned to him. He had been laid upon the uncomfortable cot again, covered in itchy, dirty wool blankets. He no longer felt as cold, and, even as the man dawned on that conclusion, his stomach filled with an unusual, liquid warmth that radiated outward from within. _

_Tony cracked open a cautious eye. The doctor sat beside him, working with something to his side. The stranger drew up a clear liquid in a large syringe before turning to his patient, attaching the syringe to the end of a plastic tube and slowly injecting the fluid. Another slow wave of warmth hit Tony from within. The man could have sworn. His old friend, Mr. Nasogastric Tube. When the doctor had pushed all of the liquid, he looked up, noticing Tony's semi-consciousness. _

_"Can you hear me?"_

_Tony tried to talk, but only a whimper escaped his lips, to his great shame. Tony closed his eyes again in embarrassment before blinking out the bleariness. _

_"The infection was not nearly as bad as it could have been." The patient wasn't sure if the surgeon were speaking to him or to himself just to make noise. "It could have been far worse. Far worse." _

_Tony listened vaguely as the doctor went on, listing complications and variables that only another doctor would currently be interested in. No. Tony had only one concern at that moment. The damned tube. It bothered his throat and the sensation unsettled his stomach. It had to go- again- and quickly. The doctor reached for the end of the ng tube again to push more fluids, and Tony weakly grabbed his wrist. With his free hand, the inventor gestured to his nose, making an outward waving motion._

_The doctor took a bowl from beside him, obviously filled with whatever liquid he had been putting into his patient's gullet. The surgeon snaked a careful hand behind Tony's neck. Gently, the doctor eased the millionaire's head upright._

_"Try to drink."_

_Tony nodded, instinctively swallowing when the warm liquid graced his lips. The stuff tasted overly sweet and a bit salty at the same time. However, to his parched tongue and dry, cracked lips, it was the best thing Tony had ever tasted. Better than the finest of wines or most exquisite of deserts. He drank until it came too fast and the millionaire gagged on it, coughing and sputtering the liquid. The doctor took the bowl away and set it down before easing Tony back onto the cot. _

_"Alright." _

_The doctor took the tube in his hands and peeled the tape that had secured it to Tony's nostril. The inventor closed his eyes. He had been forced to removed the ng tube the first time, but that didn't mean Tony relished the thought of experiencing it a second time. Tony tried to shut out the world, thinking only of Pepper as the surgeon pulled the tube from him. The man had always hated doctors, and this certain didn't breed any better sentiments._

_"That was a very foolish thing you did," the surgeon commented oddly. "You would have died."_

_"Yeah," Tony croaked, his voice hoarse from disuse and the tube._

_The surgeon shook his head glumly. "Did you want to die?"_

_"I don't... I don't know."_

xxxx

In his sleep a few days later, it came to him abruptly.

"Otaku."

Jonas had called Tony "otaku" on that dark morning. The millionaire awoke with a start, rolling off his couch and right to his computer, starting his search again there, and coming up with thousands upon thousands of websites about anime fans and geeks. Despite his foul and worsening mood, even Stark had to laugh at the seeming millions of pictures of people in costumes of their favorite cartoon characters. Some, like an overweight version of the major from _Ghost in the Shell_ -whose girth almost burst her vinyl costume at the seams - and the entire cast of _Cowboy Bebop_, Tony vaguely recognized. Others, like a blond boy in a crisp, cardinal coat, Tony didn't know. Yet, this was clearly not what Jonas had meant by that statement.

Tony thought for a moment, contemplating his options after that until he came up with one small idea. Tony mused on LeMarc's description of Amatista's paper. He typed in "otaku," "resonance," "essence," and "magic" all into the same field and submitted the search. Jarvis and his browser worked for a moment, before pulling up no exact matches, but one similar match, featuring "otaku" and "essence."

"Pay dirt."

Tony leaned into the computer, feeling smug satisfaction as he perused the page, finding it to be a brief biography of a doctor, a woman. Doctor Ivy Heather Maddox, neurosurgeon. She had been working out of a research lab when she apparently formulated a theory regarding the "emergence of the otaku and resonance." Maddox had been onto something, something big, quoted as saying that she had found "a breakthrough in digital human evolution that would change the way people viewed everything electronic around them." She touted her own discovery as a bridge between the myths of old and the world of tomorrow.

Neil Gaiman sung in Tony's ears. _American Gods_. Kitten's book. Obadiah's book. A book about old gods fighting new gods in a modern American battlefield. Tony felt sick at the connection and the jumbled mess of things.

The millionaire read on; according to the same biography, Maddox suffered a nervous breakdown shortly after an undisclosed accident in the lab in December of 2002, the same month Amatista Labropoulos supposedly died. She vanished after that for some time, reportedly going into seclusion, until she resurfaced in 2006, completely unhinged and absolutely insane. The once brilliant neurosurgeon spent her days in a minimum security mental hospital now. Her work, like Amatista Labropoulos's work, would never be completed, never be published nor praised. When Tony hacked the hospital's system, he found that Maddox had been diagnosed as a schizophrenic, requiring heavy medication and sedation with various narcotics.

Further searching yielding nothing on her research, save a photograph of a beaming woman. She looked blonde and bubbly, greatly excited by something. Her eyes shone blue under thick lab goggles, and she wore a white lab coat. There were x-ray and CAT scan printouts behind her in a wall, all illuminated from behind with white light. Beside her, stood a larger than life fellow, his arm about Maddox's waste while his other hand shook hers in an obvious photo op pose. It was a man Tony knew all too well without any caption.

"Nicholas Aurelius."

Tony glanced at the name and address of the facility where Dr. Maddox now resided. Los Angeles County - USC Medical Center. It wasn't far away from the mansion atop the cliffs, and Tony had spent far too much time hiding out in his home anyway. And Tony Stark always had time to pay a lady a visit.

xxxx

Tony Stark couldn't go very far without being recognized, especially in Los Angeles County. It worked both to and against his advantage. When he was stopped at the guard desk and nurse's station to the psychiatric ward at LAC - USC Medical Center, the inventor tried to worm his way into getting visitation with Dr. Maddox through the "cousin" excuse, but it failed miserably. No one would buy that excuse here. Although, his haggard appearance and drawn face definitely aroused a bit of suspicion from the few nurses and doctors Tony saw on that wing. The man stiffened and steeled his nerves.

However, money talked. When one of the guards shot their millionaire inventor a greedy look, Tony knew exactly what to do. Ten minutes later and five hundred dollars poorer, the guard had Tony settled into a visitation room on one side of a desk with a red line running over it and across the white tile, effectively dividing the room in two. The think scarlet carried a clear message that it wasn't to be crossed ever by any party. The room had been designed to be lined with two sets of windows. One looked out to the courtyard, where afternoon sunshine poured in, while the other allowed guards and nurses to check in on patients and their guests to ensure all was well.

The guard Tony had bribed leaned close to the millionaire. "Give me all your cellphones, beepers, PDAs, anything electronic." When Tony raised an eyebrow, the guard shrugged nonchalantly. "They freak Maddox out." Reluctantly, the man handed over everything he had on him that could possibly be considered under those terms except his arc reactor, and waited as the guard added, "And call her Fox."

"Huh?"

Again the guard gave a tired shrug of half-hearted annoyance. "Used to be her handle, I guess. It's all she answers to anymore."

With that, the guard left. After a few minutes, a pair of guards returned, with Dr. Ivy Maddox in tow. She looked nothing like the picture he'd seen of her just a few hours ago. Maddox had dropped drastically in weight, leaving her a gaunt, frail seeming figure. Her eyes no longer sparkled. They appeared to have gone dull and almost lifeless a long, long time ago, sinking deep depressions of sockets. Her hair hung in matted locks as opposed to the neat and polished ponytail he'd seen in the picture. The woman had gone deathly pale from years of lock-up. Gone were the prim glasses and pressed, white lab coat, replaced now with soft, leather restraints about her wrists and ankles, a hospital gown, and plain, green pants. The guards pushed Maddox down in the chair on the other side of the table from Tony, shackling her ankle restraints to a hook bolted into the floor. Maddox jerked and trembled in her chair, as though completely terrified by something. Her blue eyes met him for but an instant, no more than a millisecond, before dropping to the floor.

Stark waited for the guards to leave before clearing his throat and addressing the woman. "Dr. Maddox?" She didn't answer, didn't flinch; Tony tried again with her so-called handle. "Fox?"

The obviously distraught woman brought her fingernails up to her lips, chewed on them, and muttered something into the palm of her hand; Tony strained to hear her but couldn't make out a single word.

"What was that?" Tony asked softly, as though speaking to a timid child.

The former neurosurgeon twitched slightly and spoke in the tiniest of breaths, so softly that the man would have missed it were he not paying such close attention. "You're shiny."

Tony glanced down at his clothes. Nothing special. No pressed suit, bling-blinging jewelry, or anything out of the ordinary to draw attention to his wealth. And, while the clothes were most certain designer label, they were rather plain and boring. A cotton shirt hugged his torso loosely enough to conceal the shape of the arc reactor implanted into his chest. The shirt had a tight enough knit that none of the pale light from the miniature powerhouse could show through.

"Thanks?" Tony ventured a guess of polite response.

The woman's head shifted to the side, turning her eyes further from him. "M'not s'posed to talk to shiny people."

Tony cocked his head to one side. "Why not?" When the woman didn't respond or even give some small indication that she'd heard him, Tony asked again, "Fox, why not?"

"Shiny people aren't real people," the psychiatric patient answered.

The millionaire shook his head. "Who says?"

"Doctor Robbins."

Tony already knew from his prior reading that Doctor Robbins was in charge of Ivy Maddox's care; he chose his words carefully before moving on. "Why aren't shiny people real?"

"They're not."

Maddox asserted it plaintively, like a five year old announcing that the sky was blue just because it was. At any other time, Tony might have found the quirk endearing for its innocence, or perhaps sorrowing when he recalled the brilliant scientist Ivy Maddox had once been. It left Tony ill at ease to ponder what had happened to the woman to bring her to this state.

"Fox, I'm very much real." Tony reached out and tapped on the table, rapping on it to drum out a tiny tune. "See? Only real people can do things like that. You can talk to me. I promise."

"No. Can't talk to you. You're a bad, bad person," Maddox argued with the stubborn tenacity that also only belong to a child.

The inventor frowned slightly. "What happened to you, Fox?" He drew in a deep breath. "Was it Kitten?"

"Shiny person knows Kitten?" The woman's gaze finally met him again, both hopeful and horrified at the same time. "You know Kitten?" A tear of hysteria rolled down her moon white face. "Kitten alive, Kitten alive." The woman laughed wildly until she couldn't catch her breath and sat gasping for air, breathing over and over again, "Kitten. She's alive."

Tony waited for the small, manic episode to leave the doctor before asking anything else; as soon as the woman seemed settled enough, the inventor soldiered on. "Kitten didn't do this to you?"

"No." Maddox chewed on her nail, tugging on it with her teeth almost viciously. "Bad people did it. Very bad people."

"Was it your accident?" Tony watched carefully for the woman's mannerisms as she gripped the nail harder in her clenched teeth. "Did the bad people cause your accident?"

"No accident," Maddox replied, rousing a tiny tremble in Tony. "Bad people did it. Plan it. Make it happen. No accident." She giggled, but it came out of her as a chilling death rattle as she drew a menacing finger across her pale throat. "There are no accidents with the bad people. Nope. None. Nada. Zip."

A sort of repulsion settled into the man as he listened. "Fox, where were you all those years?"

The woman fell back into her chair, her body and face going slack. Her gaze returned to the floor once. She looked dejected, weak, and downright exhausted. But, more than that. Ivy Maddox looked like a shell of the woman she had once been. Nothing that had been Ivy Maddox remained in that body. Just Fox. The woman had been damaged beyond repair by whatever happened, and she seemed more than reluctant to answer that question. The woman retreated into herself to avoid the things she didn't want to think about, going still and almost catatonic for a few, long and awkward minutes.

"Fox? Fox?" Tony called to her, trying to pull her from whatever subconscious world the former neurosurgeon had drifted into.

Finally, the patient looked up once more. "You not safe from the bad people. They catch you. They take you to the dark place. They hurt you." She dropped her voice to a whisper, rocking in her chair. "You'd better hide, hide, hide, before they seek, seek, seek."

"Why, Fox?"

The doctor slumped back in her chair. "Bad people hurt the shiny people." Tony's gut knotted at the response, but Maddox went on in her childlike voice. "Kitten save Fox, set her free, free like a bird." Ivy's vision moved across the room and upwards, as though following the flight of an actual bird. "But she couldn't save the shiny people." Maddox threw herself at the table, a shackled finger pressed to her lips in secrecy. "But you're shiny people, so not all the shiny people are gone." Maddox beamed enthusiastically. "You're very pretty."

"I'm flattered," Tony replied without an ounce of emotion save curiosity. "What are these shiny people, anyway?"

The woman turned an exaggerated frown. "You're shiny people. I'm shiny people." Maddox paused, her eyes closing slightly. "I was..."

"What about Kitten and Jonas?"

Ivy Maddox drew in a deep breath and let it out with a shudder, obviously struggling to control a war of emotions within her as they all read on her face at the same time. Terror. Rage. Grief. A million and one things must have been racing through her mind. She rocked back and forth faster and faster until, suddenly, she stopped, freezing in place, her consciousness leaving her for moment. Tony wondered were Dr. Maddox went during those absences.

Finally, slowly, the woman spoke once more, weaving her head back and forth. "He bad person. Bad, bad, bad person. He hurt." Maddox tapped her temple with a pointed finger. "Cut me off." She shut her eyes tight as if to squeeze out both the world and her words. "Don't trust Jonas." Then, the war of emotions melted away; the woman pursed her lips together and jutted them out in a pout that would have been adorable from a little girl but looked out of place and twisted on an adult. "Can I go now?"

"Sure, Fox," Tony replied and gave a nod to the guards at the windows for them to come in and get their patient.

As they helped her up, Ivy's restrained hands shot out towards Tony. "Wait. No no no no no. I help you! I give you the help!" The woman shrieked in a shrill, piercing wail as the burly orderlies tried to haul her back. "I find you! You need truth! I find you and give truth!"

"Yes," the inventor breathed, slowly rising from his chair, staring at the woman.

"TRUTH INSIDE ME INSIDE YOU!"

xxxx

The inventor returned home, still reeling from the woman's words. His head ached and throbbed with each and every beat of his heart, and, so Tony took another pair of his medication before kicking off his shoes. He collapsed onto the couch as the medicine started to kick in with a dull, foggy warmth and curled up on his side. Ivy Maddox's insane rants echoed in his head as Tony drifted to sleep as a million thoughts echoed within.

xxxx

_Tony dreamt. He stood at the now demolished arc reactor house, watching energy radiate out from it in bursts and waves. It was the only way Stark could recognize that he had slipped into dreams. Otherwise, the house would have been destroyed and shattered. _

_When he looked down, the same light seemed to pulse and vibrate from within him, only different somehow. Tony looked down to see the two, back to back half circles branded upon him, the symbol that had been burned into his vision on the Mark III suit. He knew those symbols now. The information came to him from nothing, cascading upon Tony like a wave. War-chalking. Jonas had painted him with the symbol for an open node, a wifi access without any sort of password or security. Jonas had made Tony a marked man in the digital realm. Yet, there should have been an ISP number over the symbol._

_Tony rocketed back in the cave in Afghanistan with Yinsen. Where the open node symbol had been upon his chest, he now bore a gaping maw where the arc reactor also should have been. The giant hole dripped and oozed, but now with blood, with oil as black as the night and maybe even darker somehow. Yinsen said something, perhaps something comforting, but it fell upon deaf ears as Tony crashed to his knees in horror, his hands pressing down in an pathetic attempt to staunch the flow. He distantly felt the gushing hemorrhage, but it wasn't warm like blood. It felt cool to the touch and almost sticky. _

_His mind categorized the liquid curiously. Data._

_Yinsen's hand reached out and took one of Tony's, pulling it back and away, and, strangely, the inventor let him. He did not feel any surprise at the lack of trauma and pain about the wound as he watched curiously. Yinsen's fingers darted into the hole in Tony's chest, plucking something out. In the dusky lamp light of the cave, Tony saw something shimmer in the viscous liquid. It looked green and faintly alien, yet familiar. As the sludge fell away, it revealed a computer chip, new and fresh, resting in Yinsen's hand. _

_Tony furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"_

_Yinsen spoke, but no words met Tony's ears, as though the entire world had been put on mute except him. The millionaire tried to focus on the surgeon's lips, but he caught not a single syllable. When Tony's mouth fell agape, the elder man stuffed whatever it was down Tony's throat. Whatever it was, it choked and scraping all the way down to the man's stomach, burning a path worse than the strongest of moonshines and leaving behind nothing but suffering in its wake. Tony spat, desperate to cough or vomit the thing up, but nothing came. He looked down, and the open node symbol slowly morphed, into a closed circle._

_The world shifted and changed, blurring and refocusing. He felt the pulse of electrons around him and the sophisticated symphony of signals humming in the night. The endless see of information and back chatter of white noise engulfed Tony in a warm blanket, swaddling him like a newborn babe. He closed his eyes, shutting out the image of Yinsen, and allowed the sensation to wash over him. For lack of a better word, Tony resonated with the information and the signals about him, feeling his own body and mind respond eagerly to the feeling._

_The man glanced up, and the face of Yinsen shimmered before turning into the sad yet sane visage of Dr. Ivy Maddox. Maddox said only one word to Tony, and this one got through. It filled Tony's heart and mind until the man felt he could hold nothing else; it made him whole in a way no woman, no money, and no invention ever could. And it gave him a tool._

xxxx

Tony awoke with a start from the dream as it hit him like a lightning bolt from God. The dream deeply disturbed the man on some level, but Tony couldn't recall what it had been about entirely. Instead, he just felt the after affects in his trembling and baited breath that rocked him as a cold knowledge settled into him.

Otaku. Jonas. Resonance. The scientist in him could have wept at the lack of rational to anything, while the illogical part of Tony's mind, the fanciful dreamer in him, took over where his scientific mind could no longer cope with the oddities in the world around him. Tony had been trying so hard to make Kitten and Jonas fit into some model, to reason out how the boy could hack in real time without a terminal and how a girl could just manage to ignite and explode things without any incendiary device. The arms industrialist in him had been struggling to sort out what kind of weapon or technology could accomplish such things until her recalled the grim realizations in the bar and in his own home that both Kitten and Jonas had done those things on their own, without any outside force or help.

There had been no ISP of origin for the falsified documents because _Jonas _had no ISP. Jonas had controlled the Mark II suit without touching it, without any voice commands, or any sort of program. The Mark II suit had passed all virus scans and cross checks. It had always been Jonas, meaning Jonas had been somehow radiating from himself relay commands and prompts.

While the scientific mind continued to flounder, the illogical, drunken, slurred part of Tony kicked into overdrive. Theoretically, this meant that Jonas was his own ISP. His own wifi. His own terminal. All of it, all within him. Theoretically, that meant that Jonas could hack into any computer or robot in his area, muck about in the programming, and turn it into an extension of himself. And, just as theoretically, this meant that Jonas broadcasted, just like a wireless router with feet.

"Occam's Razor," the inventor reminded himself, shaking his head in chagrin.

Occam's Razor stated quite honestly that, all other things being equal, the simplest solution was the best. And what was the simplest solution? The simplest solution truly was to acknowledge what stared him right in the face, accept it, embrace it, and believe it, to use it to his advantage and against his enemies. Before, Tony hadn't been quite ready to admit what Jonas was, but, now, the dream had armed the man with a word for the mental hacker. Tony carried the knowledge close to him, like the deadliest of blades.

Tony immediately set to work on a new project. He had a plan, at least, a part of a plan, enough of a plan to deal with Jonas. Kitten he could figure out later. His hands moved by their own accord it seemed as he fabricated some sort of a new device, knowing instinctively what to do, even if his mind hadn't quite caught up yet. When his mind finally decided catch up to Tony, it hung on one word, the one thing Tony recalled from his strange, haunting dream, the last thing Dr. Maddox had said. He understood what it meant, somehow, and knew it applied to Jonas perfectly.

_"Technomancer."_

When Sister Cyanide finally phoned Tony an agonizing month later, he was ready.

**XXXX**

Author's Notes:


	16. Roll Initiative

**DUMPSHOCK - ROLL INITIATIVE**

_"Confirmed Class 2: Anthony Edward Stark (LOCATED)"_

He leaned back and basked in the glow of his laptop. Confirmation. He'd been kept waiting over 30 days for those sweet, intoxicating words to appear through encrypted chat. A cheshire cat worthy grin spread from ear to ear.

_"Status?"_

_"Within close proximity to subjects Labropoulos and Beauchamp."_

Even sweeter now.

_"Make the appropriate arrangements."_

This little game was drawing to an end.

xxxx

A long month seemed like nothing for Kitten. While Jonas did whatever he did and worked out his own investigation of Tony Stark, Kitten spent her time cleaning and prepping her guns, checking them over and over again until she was certain they were in perfect order as Sister Cyanide tutted the girl over her shoulder for making such a mess of her kitchen counter. The mercenary filled her days with small diversions between lengthy and exhausting work outs to keep her body in peak physical conditioning, meditation to keep her mind flexible, and reading from her brand new copy of _American Gods._ There was always reading. Kitten had passed much longer stretches of time with much less to keep her mind occupied. A month was a blip to Kitten.

Even still, it sent a small shudder of anxiety through her when Jonas walked into the kitchen on that otherwise dull and boring afternoon and announced, "I've got what I need. We're a go."

Kitten took her Ares Predator, a small gift in the form of a light pistol she'd liberated ages ago for herself from the weapons manufacturer, and stared down the sight, aiming at imaginary Tony Starks. "Too you long enough."

Jonas drew a pregnant breath. "There's one other thing, Kitten..."

"Yeah?" the girl didn't look up as she set about disassembling the weapon once more in practiced, precise motions; Kitten could break down all of her many firearms blindfolded by this point.

"I've got a line on a Johnson."

Kitten furrowed her eyebrows, setting down the parts of the Predator and planting her hands on the table. "No. No clients until this is done."

Jonas hissed through his teeth, one of those noises he made when trying to figure out the best way to put something that he knew would sound awful no matter how pretty the wording. "Yeah... about that. The Johnson? He wants Tony Stark. Alive."

"Well I want him dead," the girl huffed upon reassembly of the Predator.

Kitten set the firearm amid her collection. She had only been keeping them for about a year or two now, saving them for a "rainy day." Kitten preferred not to use guns as her weapon of choice. She preferred fire. Fire could hide evidence, whereas bullet holes left all sort of trace for investigators to scrape up. Residues, bullet cases, shell fragments, the works. Fires ate their own evidence and were easily made to look like accidents, under the right hands, whereas a bullet hole couldn't be mistaken for anything but what it was. There were thirty of them now, all resting before her like little soldiers ready for battle. They gleamed and glinted in the dim light of Sister Cyanide's home.

Jonas folded his arms across his chest. "The Johnson wants him worse than dead." Before Kitten could argue further, the boy raised a protesting hand. "And the Johnson will pay. 500,000 for Stark, but only if he's alive."

Kitten sniffed. "I don't do hostages."

"For five hundred you wouldn't?" Jonas pressed, irritating Kitten to no end.

The girl gave an exasperated shrug. "For five hundred, I'd do a lot of things, but not this. Tony Stark has to pay. He has to suffer for what he did to you... to all of us."

The boy nodded slowly. "And he will. Trust me. The Johnson wants that as much as we do."

Kitten huffed. "I'll think about it." She took the Predator and loaded a clip before pulling the slide to chamber the first bullet from the clip with a dry click. "But I get to have some fun first."

xxxx

"Mr. Johnson?"

A lurid, Creole voice crooned over his phone. It had been so long, so many days and nights spent hovering over an invention that did who knew what and making other preparations, that Tony almost started to wonder whether or not Sister Cyanide would ever call him. Yet, there was no mistaking the heavy accent as she spoke softly and serenely over the phone from an unlisted number.

"Sister Cyanide, I presume," he replied casually, as though having a conversation with a friend and not a connection to mercenaries and assassins. "You know, when I pay for something, I expect results."

"You be expectin' results?" The woman chuckled haughily. "You 'ave no idea 'ow runners work an' you expect 'em to run on your lil' schedule?"

Tony's face went stern. "I expect to get what I pay for."

"An' when you pay for Kitten, ya be payin' for da best," Sister Cyanide contested hotly without changing her tone or raising her voice. "I has a line on your girly. She agree ta be seein' you."

Tony nodded to himself, feeling a distant calm settling over him, the same calm he'd felt in that Afghan cave as death approached on swift wings. "Where and when?"

"My place. Tonight. Midnight," the woman purred.

The man contemplated this. He had been waiting so long for this now, anticipating every minor detail of what was to come. The device was ready. What did it do? Tony wasn't entirely certain, aside from the fact that he felt certain it would take down Jonas. It would work. He knew it, even if he didn't know how.

And Kitten? Tony hadn't figured anything out to that. The paper written by Amatista Labropoulos, while an amusing exploration of the failures of _Homo sapiens _as a species, offered no clues on how to handle these three forces she had illustrated. Tony had only bested Kitten before through a combination of pure luck and Rhodes's intervention. There was a good chance Tony wouldn't luck out this time, that he wouldn't walk away unharmed, or walk away at all. But, after what had happened to Rhodes, it was a chance Tony had to take, if only to try to make things right between himself and his friend.

There was only one answer. "Done."

xxxx

Pepper Potts eased through the front door of the Stark mansion just after dark and noticed a large, steel trunk sitting in the living room. The woman approached cautiously. The thing was big enough to hold a man, with a massive lock upon the front. Instead of a tradition key lock or an electronic lock, Tony had chosen something with a round hole to it, like a tube fit into the lock.

The woman glanced about. The house was still, dark, and silent, but that wasn't anything new these days. Tony spent his days and nights in the garage, preferring the couch over a real bed. Pepper couldn't say she blamed him, really. After all, everything had happened upstairs, ruining it for the man, and, even before that, the shop had really been Tony's true home anyway.

The inventor deeply worried Pepper. That first night she'd found him home had brought a sense of reassurance and solace to the woman, implying that Stark had gotten through whatever self-destructive binge he'd needed to indulge himself in to purge himself of what had happened that morning in his home. Yet, after that one night, Pepper couldn't help but see the obvious. Tony teetered between hard mood swings from depressed and sullen, drinking himself into oblivion, to angry and seething. When she dared ask what he was working on that kept him so preoccupied in the shop, Tony would go quiet on her. When she brought up Rhodes, Tony snapped viciously, lashing out mercilessly with calculating strikes.

What truly frightened Pepper were the odd moments of absence in Tony. He would be working on whatever project he'd cooked up, and, then, suddenly, his eyes would blank out. She had noticed that years before, when the inventor would be working intently upon something, or calculating something quite difficult and detailed. However, it had never been as profoundly obvious as it was now, nor as lingering and as unsettling. The momentary lapses lasted only a few seconds at most, but they left Pepper's blood as cold as ice.

It wasn't that the man didn't deserve his feelings. The man had initially asked about Rhodes out of a deep concern and grief over what had happened, despite the fact that Stark insisted it had been some sort of a malfunction in his exosuit. Yet, after Rhodes had quite firmly asserted that he wasn't ready to see Stark and after Pepper relayed the news of their friend's likely permanent condition, that all changed. Tony stopped asking about the colonel, started shutting down whenever the name was brought up. He would leave in a huff and return to the small device he'd labored so intensively over or the two suits Tony had been working on, despite the fact that he seemed dead set on never getting into either again.

She sighed wistfully at the thought. _"A world without Ironman, just after we were getting used to the idea."_

Worse, was the thought of a world without Tony. While Jarvis could not directly monitor any chemical levels in her employer, Pepper had started to suspect something was off with Tony. The artificial intelligence supplied Potts with daily summaries of Stark's activities (which generally included, drank to excess, pass out, and work on his projects, not necessarily in that order) and reports on any mental status that Jarvis could estimate (currently, both Jarvis and Pepper had their respective minds settled quite firmly on post traumatic stress disorder that he'd been hiding since Afghanistan, exacerbated by Rhodes's injury). It worried Pepper, to no end.

And, now, as he strode up the stairs and into the house, the woman felt her concerns weren't unfounded. He held something in his hands, not unlike the sonic tazer Stark Industries had piloted for undercover police officers and crowd control. Tony hardly seemed to notice her presence for a moment before looking down.

"Ms. Potts," he greeted flatly, in a voice distant to her and oddly rusty, shaky.

She gave a prim nod. "Mr. Stark?"

There was an awkward moment when neither dared say a word before Tony drew in a deep and heavy breath. "Ms. Potts, I want you to see that this gets to Rhodey," He gestured to the box before taking a key from his pocket and setting it on top. "I made some modifications to the Mark II suit to enhance network security and streamline operations specifically for him. There are instructions inside."

There seemed something so odd and resigned to the way Tony spoke, as though there was a certain finality to all this.

"Mr. Stark?" she breathed, suddenly afraid for him.

He cocked an eyebrow. "Ms. Potts, Pepper." Tony smirked slightly, but it was a forced expression before he sighed. "I'm not good at this."

Pepper could not resist a small giggle at that. "I must be going deaf, because I thought I just heard the great Tony Stark admit that he's not good at something." The woman planted a hand on her hip. "That's a first."

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it," he teased, but only half-heartedly at best before going grim and serious again. "Pepper."

The woman's heart contracted, wondering if maybe he were about to admit a narcotic or alcohol related problem, or perhaps an unspoken sentiment. It was no state secret that Pepper Potts and Tony Stark were constantly battling a secret infatuation with one another. Tony refused to allow himself such a thing at first because he simply had a reputation as a lady's man to uphold, and, after his return from captivity, because the enemies of Ironman could use his friends and family against him. Pepper had always refused to allow herself to submit to her own feelings of attraction because Tony was an incurable alcoholic, an irresponsible playboy, and, above all else, her employer. Nothing could ever work between them, not ever, no matter how much both of them secretly wanted it to. However, some small part of Virginia "Pepper" Potts that believed in love at first sight and true romance wondered if maybe, now, he could admit it.

"I have something I need to do tonight," Tony finally said. "Keep an eye on the place for me."

Pepper swallowed her flimsy hopes in a massive, sticking lump. "Will that be all, Mr. Stark?"

The man opened his mouth to say something, stopped, frowned, and replied, "Yes. That will be all, Ms, Potts."

xxxx

_"Location confirmation?"_

_"Subjects are within range."_

_"Confirm greenlight."_

xxxx

Tony drove the entire way to the bar in silence and strode in like he owned the place, fingering the tiny device in his pocket and feeling the reassuring heft of a pistol holstered at his shoulder. This time, the burly bouncers didn't card Tony. They just nodded knowingly at the millionaire as he waltzed in and stepped up to the bar. The tattooed bartender didn't need to ask for a drink this time, presenting him almost immediately with an unlit Flaming Kalashnikov.

"Still thought it was supposed to be on fire," Tony teased.

"Ya a rude sonovabitch, y'know 'at? Didn't ja mother evah teach ya any manners?"

The inventor didn't even look surprised when the Creole reached to light his drink again, not even meeting her sharp gaze as he blew out the flames and knocked back the shot. "And didn't your mother ever teach you it's rude to keep people waiting?"

The woman shrugged nonchalantly. "Two sazeracs for me self and me friend 'ere, if ya please."

Tony sneered as the absinthe laced drinks were set down before them. "Do you always mix business with pleasure?"

Sister Cyanide cocked an eyebrow as she put one of the shots into Tony's hand, threw the lemon garnish from her shot over her shoulder, raised her glass, and said, "Salud." The two slammed back the shots before jamming them down on the counter, wincing as the alcohol burnt its way down, before the Creole continued. "I 'ad been undah the impression dat ya always mixed business with pleasure."

Her long fingers graced the side of his arm, and a warm tickle slipped over Tony's mind. It was probably the absinthe. No, check that, it had to be the absinthe. Of all the things Tony Stark had tried, he'd never imbibed absinthe before in his life, for however impossible that may have sounded. His mind dimly recalled Ted Breaux's claim that the proper proportions of sedatives and stimulants in the herbal compounds and alcohol of the drink caused an overall "lucid feeling of awakening." Tony supposed the strange haziness that trickled over his mind could have been that. The inventor groaned inwardly that he'd even had the drink, mindful that he had to keep sharp and alert, while also consciously admitting that he had to drink it to keep appearances up.

The world shifted around him for a moment, twisting and bucking, bowing and bending towards him. Numbers sparkled across his vision in zeroes and ones. Lines of code. Java scripting. HTML. Radio signals. And, wrapping about him, where his own, unique set of digits. He glanced to Sister Cyanide and the others in the bar and saw nothing. It only seemed interested in him. Tony tried to ignore it, shaking his head, forcing himself to focus.

"Where's Kitten?"

The woman beamed, almost sadistically, before slipping her arm about Tony's elbow and escorting him silently towards the back of the bar. The floor seemed to move and shift under his feet unsteadily, swaying slightly as he swaggered towards the dimly lit booths in the very back of the bar, nestled against a brick and mortar wall that had seen far better days. He had the distinct feeling of being drunk without all the wonderful additional feelings. Sister Cyanide clutched his arm tighter, nestling against him in an almost sensual manner.

_"Was it drugged?" _He wondered to himself in a small, passing moment of regret.

It couldn't have been, Tony assured himself. He had watched the bartender mix and pour the libations for both himself and for Sister Cyanide from the same bottles and into two brand new glasses from the wash. There hadn't been anything out o the ordinary about his actions or any of it. If the drinks had been poisoned or drugged, SIster Cyanide would have been showing her own symptoms.

_"All in your mind, Tony boy. You've been much more drunk than this before, so pull yourself the fuck together."_

Tony reached into his pocket and felt the small, still unsure device in his pocket. The smooth metal and tiny buttons gave Tony comfort and steeled him as they glided across the floor.

There, in the booth, sat Kitten and Jonas, side by side. Jonas seemed utterly innocuous in this place, dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt. His long hair had been pulled back in a neat ponytail. Data and coding streamed about Jonas, threading over him before shooting out in the world in glittering strings. Beside him, sat the lolita in her green wireform again, snuggling against the boy almost provocatively. Tony glanced about, and noticed that no one else seemed to see the girl.

_"Why hello, Miss Green Fairy." _Tony mentally imagined himself doffing an invisible hat to the girl, and, curiously, the wannabe lolita gave a tiny wave with one of her see-through hands.

Kitten, meanwhile, looked dressed to kill. Her feet were propped up on the table, clad in her black combat boots and crossed almost demurely at the ankles. It was only _almost _demurely because she had chosen to wear both fishnet stockings and a tiny, plaid skirt with black buckles on it and a form fitting black tank top. Her curled, ebony hair had been piled atop her head into a knot, leaving the long longs cascading down her back and undoubtedly covering her Phoenix tattoo. She sat idly perusing a page of a brand new copy of _American Gods_, Tony noted. Upon seeing him, Kitten shifted her weight, straightening a bit as she closed the book and placed it securely in a new, black knapsack.

Kitten gestured for him to sit as she casually greeted, "Mr. Johnson."

"Kitten," the inventor replied as he sat, his own voice as cold as ice and almost frightening to himself, distant and dark, bitter and seething.

The girl pursed her lips into a mocking smirk. "I figured you'd be smart enough to lay low and not come looking for trouble."

"What can I say?" Tony shrugged. "I always liked a little action in my life."

Kitten's facade of composed mockery fell away, leaving her serious and dour, almost regretful about something that she refused to tip her hand over. "I kind of figured that, too." As soon as it was said, that fleeting, solemn moment to the girl vanished as she snarled, "What do you want?"

"I wanted to meet with the infamous Amatista Labropoulos."

The girl flinched at the name, something stirring behind her eyes, a raw hatred escaping in her voice as she fixed an accusing gaze upon him. "You paid a lot of money to meet a corpse, fuckmook."

Tony smirked; he'd gotten under her skin and starting to dig in, "See, that's where I think you're wrong, Amatista. And, unless you're the walking dead or a ghost, I take it the pleasure is entirely mine."

_"Subjects confirmed."_

The words screamed in the back of Tony's mind, but no one had said a thing. The information and data streaming about Jonas rocketed faster. The pure and primal coding swirled like a vortex or tornado, blurring even to him. Tony licked his lips, feeling the device in his pocket.

"Can I ask you a question? And you can be honest with me, trust me."

KItten clenched her teeth for a moment, her muscles tightening. "No one in Stark Industries can be trusted. You're all lying, manipulative bastards."

"Granted," Tony said flatly. "But, tell me, because I've always been curious, what's it like to be dead?"

The question poured from Tony's lips unbidden as his sarcasm reared it's ugly head once more. The code about Jonas spun at dizzying speeds. Warning sirens rang in Tony's ears and the back of his mind. He didn't know where it all came from, but a part of Tony trusted it, gripping the tiny device suddenly.

_"Confirm for Beauchamp, Labropoulos, and Stark."_

Tony's vision grayed slightly at his own name, but no one had said a thing, not a word had been uttered nor scathing remark thrown in a few seconds. The man darted a sidelong glance over the bar, studying everyone for as long as he could without drawing undo attention. Yet, everyone was suspicious looking there, with their eyes set into narrow glares, all bulky muscles and leather jackets, along with a wide arsenal of weapons carried on each of them. Tony reminded himself that this was, by all accounts, a runner bar, a place were mercenaries were fired and hired by the Johnsons who needed their unsavory services. Who knew who lingered in the dark corners or pockets of choking cigarette smoke?

Tony did think he saw someone he knew at the bar. A big man, larger than life, with a white beard to match. His mind hummed as it tried to put a name to the face, but the man was gone, swallowed up by the crowd in a heartbeat. Aurelius? No, Aurelius wouldn't be caught dead in a place like that. Stane? No, for Stane was still serving out his incarceration in New York at S.H.I.E.L.D. Central. It had to have been his imagination, but the man kept looking to try to be certain.

"It's kind of like being alive," Kitten snapped churlishly, dragging his focus back to her as she took her feet from off the table and planted them on the floor.

_"Confirm go?"_

"Listen, asshat, unless you've got something good to say in the next sixty seconds," Kitten growled angrily and rose. "We're done here."

"Wait."

_"Confirmed."_

Tony sighed, feigning a wound, a touch as he casually and unobtrusively pulled the tiny electronic from his pocket; if he could have, the man might have tried to squirt a few tears for the benefit of his own ruse. "I don't know who or what you two are, but you hurt my friends. And I'm suffering for it now."

"Mr. Stark," Kitten began venomously, dropping all the formality of calling Tony by the pseudonym of her trade and drawing close, so close that Tony could smell her scent of fever and freshly burnt tinder. "You don't know suffering." She breathed deeply, and the man thought he dimly heard an eagle cry as the cool muzzle of a gun pressed into the side of his neck. "But you will when I'm done with you."

"And where were you hiding _that_ in that outfit?" Tony quipped, unable to resist.

A tight smile faintly graced the girl's lips. "Wouldn't you like to know." The smile melted away, leaving only a battle hardened warrior in place of the teasing girl. "Now, you're going to stand up very nicely now and walk outside with me, and no trouble now."

"Ah," Tony felt his old, cocky self returning. "But, that wouldn't be any fun, now would it?"

Kitten laughed a tiny, proud laugh. "Not for you, at least."

Her free hand curled about the side of his neck, and what had been a faint tickle in his brain turned into a pulse, a heartbeat. It started small and built inside of him as dark thoughts penetrated his own plans. Images of himself dead and bleeding flashed in the background to his thoughts. Tony thought Kitten mumbled something, but he couldn't make out the words until a keening voice reverberated in his mind.

_"Never for you."_

The millionaire paused, as though giving it good consideration, before shaking his head. "Nah. I've got other plans for this evening in mind."

And, with that, Tony jerked his body back, hurling himself and the chair he sat in back and rolling over his shoulders. It was a precise motion, one he had spent ample time practicing and perfecting in his suits, so much so that Tony almost made it look graceful. As he tucked back, his right had reached for the Glock in its holster at his side, while his left hand brought up the small device. Tony aimed the Glock for Kitten as she brought up her weapon - that Tony now recognized as an Ares Predator - right into his face.

His finger found the button he'd placed upon it, rather like the same one on the sonic taser, and pressed down hard, mashing upon the thing.

_"The truth in me in you!"_

Ivy Maddox's last, desperate cry to Stark in the visitation room at the hospital echoed in his ears like a deafening toll, but it was too late. He'd already done it, and, worse, Tony had already instinctively tossed the device towards Jonas when the truth finally settled into him. Jonas's eyes went wide in horror, as did the eyes of the little lolita beside him. The flashing sequences of code and signals frayed and snapped, scattering to the wind and dissolving in a sea of pixels. An ice pick stabbed viciously into Tony's brain, twisting and scalded where it touched fresh meat and dug deeper and deeper. Both he and Jonas went crashing to the ground. The artificial intelligence screamed something, but Tony didn't hear it as she faded away, no longer held together by Jonas's force of will.

He had felt this before, all too well. A crushing pressure on his chest as all of his muscles clenched for a heartbeat before going limp and out of his control. Tony could have laughed at his own foolishness of setting off what seemed to amount to a sonic taser in a crowded bar without thinking about the consequences or even contemplating a way to protect himself from the after effects. But his math and his designs were never wrong.

Tony ran the information through his head, listening vaguely as Jonas shrieked in the background and as his eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling. His calculations and his designs were rarely wrong. Overpowered, yes. Overly sophisticated, yes. Wrong, no. He'd build a signal interrupter, something to throw off Jonas's ability to hack with his mind. The schematics and modifications raced through Tony's consideration, and he noticed something. No one else in the bar had been affected. Just Tony and Jonas.

The millionaire grit his teeth and forced his body to move under his command. He had done it before to save Pepper's life; he could do it again. His muscles responded sluggishly as trails of data burnt in his vision, confusing and jumbled. Tony stood awkwardly, on wobbling legs that made newborn animals look good, turning his attention to Kitten and Sister Cyanide where they knelt beside a clearly suffering and pale Jonas, writhing on the floor in seeming agony.

Kitten glanced up at Tony abruptly, her eyes dark and threatening as embers glowed in her pupils. "Now _that _was a seriously fucking stupid thing to do."

Yet, before she could do anything else, the adrenaline in Tony's veins finally kicked in, and he did the only thing he could do when presented with this sort of a situation. He ran. No one stopped him as he fled the bar. The millionaire bolted from the bar as fast as his ungainly strides could take him, jumping into his car, panting as he did.

"That wasn't what I expected."

xxxx

"Fuck." Kitten swore, spitting the word as she knelt beside the clearly ailing Jonas.

"It's tha dumpshock," Sister Cyanide guessed as she tried to tend for him as best she could, as best anyone could, having already seen it happen before to Ivy Maddox. "You can't do enaything for 'im." The Creole shook her head solemnly. "So, didja do it ta Stark?"

"Yeah." Kitten sighed. "Take care of Jonas for me."

Sister Cyanide squeezed Kitten's hand. "Get 'im, and get 'im good."

"I always do."

The Creole flashed one of her big, wide, toothy smiles before Kitten spun about on her booted heel after Stark. Sister Cyanide had a fond set of mannerisms and gestures, each almost motherly and friendly. The memory would last with Kitten for a lifetime beyond that, impressed in her mind It was the last time Kitten saw Sister Cyanide, also known as Cyan Beauchamp, alive. The next time the girl would see her fixer and friend, Sister Cyanide would be chilled, carved open, spread on a slab, and very much dead indeed.

If only Kitten had waited just another minute longer, she may have noticed the very same man Tony had previously noted at the bar approaching, or the hand reaching up to pluck something tiny from Jonas's own ears. Perhaps Kitten would have seen the look of shock and betrayal on Sister Cyanide's face. But it was too late. Kitten had already rushed out of the bar and into the night after her prey.

xxxx

_"Subject Beauchamp acquired. Subjects Labropoulos and Stark on the move."_

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: so, yeah, it took a little while building, but we are getting to territory where things will start to make some sense, I assure you... maybe.


	17. Edge Pool

**DUMPSHOCK - EDGE POOL**

His skull throbbed and ached. His muscles trembled. Strings of nonsensical data flashed and flared in his eyes before settling over him. Lifetimes worth of data and signal pierced him like a thousand precise knives, hungry for his blood. It burnt and seared into him, branded his brain in a million different ways, each more painful and agonizing than the last. It took all of his effort to find his keys, put them into the ignition and drive off without crashing into just about every light pole and passing car or truck on the way home.

Hoisted by his own petard. That's the only way Tony could describe what had just happened. Aside from that, nothing made sense anymore. The world had become a jumbled place of information overlay, and it sent convulsions through his every muscle as his body and mind struggled to cope with the sensory overload.

_"What went wrong?"_

Tony kept asking the question of himself as he raced back to the mansion and staggered from his car. The millionaire didn't make it but five feet before the data hit him hard once more, spiking in his brain and down his synapses with white hot pain, sending Tony back to the ground. His hands reached out, clawing at the ground to pull himself up to at least sit at his work desk but finding no purchase on anything. He slumped against the cool metal table, staring out at the infinite sea of electronics dancing and sparkling before him in code that seemed so very familiar.

_"What went wrong?" _

For once, Tony had no answers.

xxxx

At a little after two in the morning, Pepper's phone rang, its shrill tone breaking the comforting stillness of her bedroom. She had only just managed to curl up in bed and fall into deep sleep before the thing went off. The woman groaned to herself and rolled over, pawing the blankets for her Blackberry. The phone number flashing on the screen indicated the main phone from Tony's house.

Pepper mentally resolved to both never sleep with her phone on ring again and to slap her employer the next morning for calling so late, but she still answered, grumbling, "This had better be important, Mr. Stark."

"My apologies, Miss Potts, but this is not Mr. Stark."

The woman instantly recognized the mildly British intonation to the prim voice. "Jarvis?" She glanced at the clock. "What are you doing calling at 2:05 in the morning?"

"You instructed to be called if Mr. Stark's mental status changed."

xxxx

Tony's body both burnt and froze at the same time, sending agonizing chills through him, racing up and down his spine. His limbs twitched occasionally, outside of his control. The millionaire's mind spun out of control, still reeled from whatever had happened, still trying to desperately sort some explanation to all this out and figure a way to solve the problem.

"Jarvis..." he breathed the name, calling to the electronic butler, unable to speak any louder than but a hushed whisper.

A brilliant ball of white numbers bubbled up before his eyes as Jarvis spoke, calm and collected as always, as the AI had been programmed to be. "Yes sir?"

Tony let his head rest against the desk behind him, struggling to regain control of his body and mind. "Jarvis, what's happening to me?"

The artificial intelligence seemed to think for a moment, to pause and gather its thoughts, but Tony knew, subconsciously, the house was just gathering enough data to formulate the most logical and likely answer as the data streamed past him. "You appear to be exhibiting opioid withdrawal."

Tony shook his head weakly at the circling digits as they ricocheted against his skull. "That's... that's not possible."

_"Possible," _a voice of doubt interjected in his mind, sending Tony flinging back again, struggling to focus amid the array of agony in his mind and body as well as the codes and signals pulsating about him.

"Your perspiration, pulse rate, and respiratory rate are all elevated. Your pupils are dilated. You are experiencing muscle twitching and aches, as well as weakness and anxiety, and you are tearing," Jarvis listed almost callously. "Classic symptoms of withdrawal."

"Okay, makes sense," Tony admitted glumly, breathing deeply to control his own respiration and mulling over the absinthe laced cocktail he'd ingested just an hour or two earlier.

_"Does it?" _His conscience seemed to question vaguely.

The man shrugged, trying to ignore the voice. "Jarvis..."

Tony paused for a moment to think it out. There he was, sitting on the floor of his own shop, barely able to control his body and mind from whatever the mercenaries had obviously drugged him with and losing himself amid a vast world of numbers and codes that were an obvious stress induced hallucination. What could he do? Where could he turn to? No one. No one would believe him. But Pepper Potts. She was different. She knew he was Ironman before the world knew, and the woman had kept his secret closely guarded, even coming to his aid against Obadiah Stone multiple times. Pepper could be trusted.

"Yes sir?" the computer prompted, sending another dazzling array of white programming code rising through the green, knotted mess.

_"Yes sir?" _the voice in his mind parroted.

"Call Miss Potts right away. Tell her it's an emergency."

"I already have," Jarvis responded.

"What?!" Stark blurted out awkwardly, horrified by the thought of Pepper seeing him like that, despite how comforting it had been a moment ago.

"Miss Potts already requested that she be informed of any changes to your mental and physical health," Jarvis explained succinctly and without any emotion. "She will be here within the half hour."

Tony let himself go limp. "So I don't really have a choice in the matter, eh?"

"No, sir."

The man nodded and let his body slip against the side of the work desk, surrendering to the chills that rocked his body. Pepper would be there soon. Pepper would help him. She always did. She wouldn't let him down. Pepper had never in the whole time Tony knew her.

_"Ah, but will she be here before you completely lose it? Are you a betting man?"_

xxxx

Pepper Potts had been expecting that call for some time now. The strange mannerisms and requests Tony had made earlier in the night only put the nail in the coffin, so to speak, that he'd come unhinged. She had known it would only be a matter of time before Jarvis called for her to come and pick up the broken pieces of her employer like she had before when he'd get too drunk to take care of himself.

She threw open the door to find the upstairs dark. "Mr. Stark?" When there came no answer, the woman decided to go about this the quickest way possible. "Jarvis, where is Mr. Stark?"

"In the workshop."

Pepper nodded. Of course he would be there. She drew a deep breath and stomped down the steps, hoping each and every angry clip of her heels could be heard through the floor, but knowing that Tony had designed the house to absorb sound as opposed to transferring it. She punched her key code into the door before slipping inside and glancing about.

"Mr. Stark?" A muffled sound met her ear. "Tony?"

She stepped forward, and, then, she saw him. Jarvis had prepared the woman with a mild warning that Stark appeared to be suffering some sort of drug withdrawal, listing his symptoms, but that hadn't prepared her for actually seeing him with her own eyes. He had sprawled across the floor, as though he didn't have the energy nor the strength to get up from there. His body twitched and quivered with the shakes, as his glossy eyes struggled to focus.

The woman knelt beside her employer. "Oh, Tony."

"Pepper?"

His voice broke her heart when he whispered her name. He sounded and looked like he was suffering there on the floor of his own home, locked in an agony Pepper could never, would never understand. Her heart of ice melted for Tony as she reached out to touch his shoulder gently, and shattered as the man jumped from even the light contact. The woman wondered what he had been through to bring him to this, suddenly pitying her employer.

She nodded, chewing on her lip. "In the flesh." She took his hand in hers and ran her fingers through her long hair. "So, come on."

He blinked, like he struggled to focus. "What? Where?"

"We're going to the hospital before you get any worse," the woman announced rather matter-of-factly. "You need help."

The man let out a strangled, hysterical laugh. "Yeah, I guess I do." His laugh turned to a giggle, childish and maniacal. "Got a big cat problem." Tony froze, shivering as his face fell. "That really wasn't that funny."

"No, it wasn't." Pepper sighed. "So, come on and get up."

Tony shook his head, suddenly terrified. "I can't."

The inventor knew he couldn't. If he went to a hospital, they wouldn't know what to do with him. Hell, even Tony had not quite figured out what Kitten and her little goons had done to him, or what he had done to himself with the modified sonic taser. They would probably listen, shake their heads at crazy Tony Stark, promptly fit him with a white jacket, and introduce him to a padded room where he could spend the rest of his natural life. The thought of being locked up somewhere, anywhere, horrified Tony to no end, worse than the possibility of death.

The woman planted a firm hand on her hip and pulled herself together to manage a relatively stern and severe glare. "Yes, you can. And, yes, you will."

"I don't need to," the man asserted as his mind felt torn in two down the middle. "I just... my head hurts, Pepper." He waved a weak hand in the direction of the counter. "I just need a Scotch and some rest... no doctors."

Something in Pepper snapped as soon as Tony made the damning request, distancing herself emotionally from her employer quite suddenly, as though an impenetrable wall erected itself between them in a heartbeat. She merely replied quite simply and forcefully, "No."

"Pepper... Pepper, please," Tony Stark begged now, his voice cracking as his body trembled uncontrollably and as he sensed the abrupt change in his assistant.

The woman shook her head tersely, cool and collected, like a true personal assistant should in times of great PR crisis, distancing herself from any emotional attachment with a cool disdain. "Mr. Stark, I highly recommend that you both quickly and quietly kiss your control over Stark Industries goodbye and check yourself into rehab."

Tony shook his head fiercely, feeling tears rolling down his cheeks. "No... Pepper, please, you've got to believe me."

"I don't have to believe anything, Mr. Stark, except that you have a serious problem," the woman replied curtly and almost matter-of-factly as she skillfully averted uttering the truth, that her employer had become nothing more than a washed out drug addict. She folded her arms across her chest, looking down her nose at the pathetic creature before her, aloof as a pagan goddess. "It's not in my job description to believe anything."

Tony reached out and grabbed her pale wrist, squeezing hard enough to feel her bones and muscles strain under the pressure of his hold, to feel her stillness constrast so sharply against the shivering and shaking of his own muscles. "Please, Pepper. I can't..."

It wasn't in Anthony Edward Stark to beg. In fact, Pepper had never seen the inventor beg in his entire life. Even in the video she'd secured from the ghost drive of Tony in captivity, so badly injured and held at gun point, he never begged. Not for his life, and not for death. No. Tony had always been a problem solver, searching a way to avoid anything as demeaning and costly as begging. However, now, ashen and shivering, his body ravaged by whatever poisons he'd been putting into himself and however frequently, Tony Stark desperately begged for her help. He plead with each and every fiber of his being, right down to his eyes, wide and fearful.

It almost worked on Pepper Potts, but she knew Tony Stark too well. His personal assistant had seen him blow through fast cars, hot women, and hard liquor like they were nothing. Over his years of debauchery, Tony had grown quite accustomed to saying what women wanted to hear in oder to get in their pants. However, his assistant had seen him in action with her own two eyes, and she wouldn't let Tony con her like all of his one night stands that she'd escorted from the house on so many occasions.

In truth, Pepper Potts had already danced this number before, many times. Stark wasn't the first celebrity or business man Pepper Potts had worked for as a personal assistant, nor had he been the first to succumb to a vice of some form. The woman had tried so very hard to help those previous employers of hers before they self-destructed completely. With his glaringly obvious symptoms of PTSD including insisting on parading around in a prototype exosuit to fight crime like something out of a cheap and poorly written comic, it hardly surprised Pepper that the millionaire industrialist would turn to narcotics and alcohol. If anything, it bothered Pepper that she hadn't figured it out sooner, if only to have more time to prep for the upcoming media onslaught that would no doubt hit as soon as anyone knew the great Tony Stark, weapons manufacturer, sex symbol, and the fabled "Ironman," was in rehab. Damage control, that was how Tony always worded it. At this short of notice, though, there could be no recovering from this PR disaster for Tony. If she was a smart PA, Pepper would jump ship and fast to avoid tarnishing her own reputation.

Pepper shook her head, thinking of the few kind and dear moments he'd given her, the tiny little things he'd done for her. "No." He blinked at the simple word, as if stunned, his mouth hanging open but unable to form words; the woman just looked down, suddenly gravely interested in the tile beneath her feet. "Tony, I can't just sit here and watch you do this to yourself."

"Pepper." Her name was barely audible as it spilt from his lips.

"I have sat back and said nothing this whole that you've been running around as Ironman out there night after night, wondering if, one of these days, you're not going to come back. I can't keep doing this, Tony." The woman gave another shake of her head, firmly this time, much more resolved. "No. Not this time." She put her hand to his cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin and the fever, knowing she only had one bargaining chip against Tony Stark and all his millions. "I'm going to walk out of here, and, if you don't come with me to go get yourself the professional help you really need, don't expect me to come back."

She stood abruptly, taking just enough of a step back to be out of his reach; Tony gave one small effort to move for her but slumped back against the wall. "I can't... I just..." his lips pursed together in a childish pout, quivering slightly. "She did something to me, Pepper...but..." His voice caught at the word at the admission. "But it's my fault."

But his personal assistant didn't seem to notice his words; instead, Pepper took another step back, swallowing as she did. "I'm going, Tony."

"Don't leave me," he whimpered in a pathetic voice.

Pepper backed away a bit further, her steps a little less sure. "Tony, I'm serious."

"Pepper..."

The woman felt a tear forming at her cheeks and a lump rising in her throat. Tony looked so utterly pathetic, covered in a sweat sheen, his eyes febrile and glassy. He barely seemed able to even look at her. Whether he lacked the energy or the nerve to do so, Pepper couldn't tell. Tony was coming apart at the seams, and he was just too stupid, too arrogant to know it. Potts knew she couldn't just sit back and watch him throw his life away. Not this way, not this time.

She was at the door to the steps leading up to the main part of the house from the shop. The door and walls felt cool, smooth, and glassy to the touch, but Pepper knew it wasn't really glass. Another one of the great Tony Stark's inventions, a super strong, clear material that served as both a physical barrier and a touch screen computer.

"This is your last chance," the woman breathed, taking another hesitant step back. "I mean it, Tony."

The inventor looked to her, a profound sorrow in his eyes. It was something she'd never seen in him before, something she could never have expected from Stark. However, the man refused to move. He just sat there, with his back to his work desk, staring at her blankly, as if looking for some answer in his brain as to how to fix all his problems with some simple gadget or invention. Tony's jaw hung open in a surprised 'o,' but suddenly unable to form any coherent words or pleas, let alone summon up his practically trademarked humor. His lip moved, but only ever so slightly, as though there were things he wanted to say but couldn't.

Finally, he closed his eyes slowly and uttered her name again in a barely audible whisper. "Pepper..."

His personal assistant took one, last hard look at the man before her, knowing that the image would be permanently fixed in her brain as one, crystalline moment of human suffering. The shop stood in shambles, parts of various machines and tools scattered this way and that. One of the ancient robots lay on its side, struggling to right its self. Wires tangled on the floor where they'd been strewn. And, in the middle of all that, slumped against his work desk. In what was the worst part of it all, silent tears streamed down Tony's cheeks. He was, perhaps, the saddest sight Pepper had ever laid eyes on, a far cry from the super hero he thought he'd become since Afghanistan.

Pepper let out a heavy, lamenting sigh, rubbing her forearms before turning and curling her hand about the door handle. "Good-bye, Tony."

xxxx

Tony watched Pepper turn her back on him. Before, he used to love the sight of her backside. Pepper had a lanky frame, thin and delicate without being overly so. Her body seemed a graceful, pale thing, with just a bit of curve to it in the right places. It wasn't any great state secret that the inventor loved seeing her walk away from him, to watch her hips swivel and swing beneath whatever business attire she chose for the day. This time was different, however, for, as she strode up the stairs, her high heels clipping with each step, Tony felt himself melt inside.

"PEPPER!"

She didn't answer. A part of Tony knew she wouldn't, couldn't answer him, even as he kept crying out to her. His screams became ragged, until Tony no longer recognized his own voice, nor the sounds coming out of his mouth. He could have been calling anything, but his dazed brain refused to make any sense of it.

_"She's gone, Tony. She's gone, and she's never coming back. And it's all your fault."_

The man curled up on the floor on his side and let his head rest on the cool floor, letting the wracking sobs which had been building up within his heart take him. Tony didn't know how long he remained there and cried, but he let it out. Everything, despite how unbecoming and shameful it seemed. There wasn't much important in Tony's life, and they'd managed to take it from him. They broke his courage and pride, and they took the one woman in the world he thought he might actually, truly care about.

And, oh how they would pay for it.

Tony drew his knees up to his chest, curling his arms about his legs and savoring the thought of destroying those bastards as soon as he could get control of his body. His mind reeled with the possibilities, relishing in the thought until a board, wicked smile spread across his lips. Knives and clubs were too inelegant for him. He was, after all, Tony Stark, the boy genius and master inventor. No. He would devise something absolutely perfect and precise just for Kitten and Jonas. It would be perfect beyond measure, and all by his hands. And it wouldn't be such a total backfiring failure as his last endeavor.

_"Is that really what you want so badly?"_

Tony jumped back, his head cracking into the desk behind him with a sharp pang. His hand jerked back to feel for any blood instinctively, and finding nothing the warmth of a slowly building bruise. It had been _her _voice. Kitten. Tony glanced about the shop wildly, searching for her. But no one was there, and no one had come down the stairs after Pepper left. Only the glittering numbers and strings of code moved in his vision.

"Who...?"

The voice laughed haughtily in his ears. _"You should know who it is by now."_

Tony grit his teeth, forcing his body upright again, hanging on to the edge of the work station to drag himself up. "Where are you, Kitten?" He demanded viciously, "Come out, come out, bitch."

_"Brave words for a coward."_

"You're one to talk," Tony snarled back, letting himself slump back to sit on the cool ground again. "Won't even show yourself."

_"Would if matter? Look at you! You couldn't hurt a fly right now, let alone lay a finger on me!" _Kitten teased bitterly.

"Jarvis!" The inventor barked.

The ai immediately responded almost nonchalantly, "Yes, sir?"

Tony grinned from ear to ear, almost madly now; he had her pinned. "Locate and list all individuals in the home."

"Just yourself, sir."

The man blinked in shock. Just himself? It couldn't be. He heard her, Kitten, just as easily and normally as he'd heard her in the woods. Even then, as his mind reeled for a moment, he could hear her laughing mockingly at his fright.

"Jarvis, check again," the inventor ordered sharply.

The computer could have sounded annoyed in its immediate response. "There is no one else present, sir."

_"Not the answer you expected?" _Kitten taunted in his ear, her voice a husky breath as though right behind him.

"Jarvis, check for any life form or unusual signals," Tony blurted the words out unsurely, as though wondering if maybe, just maybe, Kitten wasn't human.

_"Oh, yes, Jarvis! Tell us, tell us!"_

"There is no one else present and no radio interference, sir," Jarvis repeated.

Tony let his body slip back down to the floor as Kitten giggled devilishly in his mind. He balled up on the floor on his side, drawing his knees all the way up to his chin and clutching them tightly, squeezing as hard as he could with his arms. His body trembled, but not just from withdrawal now. No. Now he trembled in abject horror. A distant part of his brain hummed with thought, but nothing concrete came up.

Nothing, except for her voice again, hissing and teasing. _"Ah, so the great Tony Stark has finally figured it out. You're alone. All alone. And me? I'm just in your mind, Tony. And oh what an intriguing place it is."_

Tony shuddered now, shutting his eyes tight and trying to block the voice from his head, to ignore it. If Jarvis could not locate her, then Kitten most assuredly wasn't in the house. He'd hand installed and calibrated all of Jarvis's thousands upon thousands of sensors that could track hundreds of different variables. It's what made Jarvis so intelligent for artificial intelligence. There was no way possible Kitten could be there if Jarvis couldn't find her, which meant only one, awful truth.

_"Aw, did poor baby figure out he's gone one flew over the cuckoo's nest?" _He could almost hear her over-acting a pout.

"You're not real."

Kitten gave a wild laugh. _"Do you think?"_

Tony grit his teeth, holding himself tighter, talking to himself now as he cradled his knees. "Don't acknowledge her. She's not real."

_"And what makes you think that?"_

"You aren't real," Tony asserted again, but he wasn't certain if it was to Kitten's disembodied voice or to himself. "This isn't really happening."

_"It was Albert Einstein who said that reality is merely an illusion," _Kitten paused, as though savoring the shivers that raced through Tony's body, like she could see him. _"Although a very persistent one."_

The man smirked. "I can beat you though if you're only in my mind. I'm stronger than you there."

_"Are you?"_

Unbidden, his dreams, his nightmares of the caves were drawn forth, bringing with them the emotional and physical pains. It was dark and frigid, making him far colder than he'd been before. There were people shouting all around in him strange, alien languages. There were hands upon him again, and fingers in the cavity of his chest. Blood felt sticky upon him. They were forcing a tube up his nose and past his vocal cords, gagging him. But, not matter how he writhed and squirmed on the floor, he couldn't rid himself of the invisible hands and those dreamt injuries. Kitten giggled again in a childish glee as Tony squirmed on the floor. The memories fell away from him just as easily as they'd crested.

_"I'll ask again, are you stronger than me in your mind?" _Kitten inquired; Tony knew, if she were actually there, she would be folding her arms across her chest smugly.

"Yes," Tony asserted again.

He immediately felt a sudden agony deep in his chest cavity, deep at the arc reactor, below where he knew it was. His own hands reached, clawing at the reactor plate, no matter how much Tony's mind struggled to keep them down. His fingernail dug into his shirt and into the flesh below it, digging to pull whatever it was deep within him out. Whatever it was beneath the reactor, it moved suddenly with an almost snake like jerk, tearing and ripping at him. His brain screamed not to, even as his hands found the grip on the reactor and started to turn it slightly. Tony grunted as he desperately fought whatever held him mentally. To so violently remove the arc reactor would be to submit to a tortuous, slow and agonizing death. He'd already felt that once before, when Obadiah stole the reactor and left him to die on his own couch, paralyzed one of his own inventions. However, no matter how hard Tony fought against the urge to rip the damned thing from his chest, he couldn't stop himself.

And, then, just like that, it was over. His hands flopped to his sides, limp and dead. Tony gasped and panted, pulling himself back together and bringing himself back to reality. The man glanced about, his mind still trying to make some sense of whatever was happening around him.

_"I will ask you one more time, Tony, and be honest with me. Who is stronger in your mind? You or me?"_

"I am..."

Between the withdrawal and the haunting voice in his own head, Tony did the only thing he could do. Tony Stark submitted to no man and no woman, no matter who or where they were. He'd beaten the Ten Rings in the caves. He'd taken on Obadiah, even took the chance that blowing the main arc reactor to Stark Industries wouldn't kill the miniature version in his chest that kept him alive. Tony lifted his head ever so slightly off the cold, hard floor and slammed it down as hard as he could with a sharp crack.

"Because..."

Tony couldn't help himself. The first blow had felt so undeniably good that he raised his head up and smashed in it into the floor hard again. His stomach twisted and lurched as his head hit the ground. Spikes of white hot java script screamed in his head, driving crushing blows of their own with each character.

"You're..."

He dealt himself another driving blow against the concrete. Tony absently wondered who had driven him to do it. Kitten? The "withdrawal" Jarvis had diagnosed but now seemed potentially, entirely fabricated? The continued hallucinations of numbers and binary flashing about him? His growing sorrow that Pepper had so quickly abandoned him? Or his own anguish at self-distructing so perfectly?

"Not..."

Tony's vision swam with the next strike, the lab growing fuzzy and almost dizzying. At that point, it no longer mattered who or what drove Tony to do it. Not when he heard the sickening smack of wet, bloody flesh upon the floor and saw sparks fly across his eyes, nor when the strings of glittering data shattered about him into a spray of pixels. As his head lifted again, Tony spied the crimson splatter across the floor of his own blood, but he closed his eyes to shut out the sight.

"Real."

With the last blow, the world fell away from him.

xxxx

Kitten waited until she felt the darkness encroaching upon Tony Stark and until she knew for certain his mind had gone still. Only then did she take her gaze from off the Stark residence and raise a hand to wipe a small trickle of blood from where it had run down her nose. Her kind of people had distinctive advantages and critical drawbacks to life. This small one, the mercenary counted as well worth it.

Then, the girl jumped off of her bike and ambled up to the house, feeling a giddy little kick in her stride. Now, Johnson or no Johnson, Kitten could have a little fun with the man she had waited four years to finally put in his place. She would see him crawl like a dog before her and beg for mercy, just as she had all those years ago. And, when she had lost interest in his suffering, the girl would end it, just as simply as that. She practically scampered at the thought.

Kitten had worried at first that the house would be a fortress, and that she might actually had to use some force to get in. However, that prim little personal assistant of Stark's had left the front door open in a rather fortunate gesture towards Kitten. The woman seemed angry and upset as she bolted from the house, completely distracted and distraught. Kitten strode up the path right to the front door and slipped inside, locking the door shut behind her. She didn't bother looking upstairs for her prey; the girl could still feel the faint hum of the man's subconscious in whatever lay beneath the house. Kitten immediately turned to the steps and followed her instincts, until she found herself in what looked like a cross between a workshop and a garage. Again, the upset assistant had done Kitten another great favor by leaving the door to the shop open, and the girl waltzed right through it. Piece of cake.

She approached the prone and bloodied form of Tony Stark slowly, reaching into her knapsack to pull out a large and rather dangerous looking knife as she took a knee beside him. He did not stir. Kitten felt a sinister grin form on her face as her heart thundered in her ears and her hand clutched a fistful of his hair. His dark eyes fluttered open to meet hers as she did.

"Oh, Mr. Stark, what fun we'll have tonight."

xxxx

_"Subjects Stark and Labropoulos within range. Subject Stark incapacitated in both aspects."_

_"Proceed."_

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: Yes, I beat up a lot on Tony, but, trust me, he'll be a badass, eventually. I have big plans for Tony Stark. Very big plans. And, again, if you play Shadowrun, then you should already know exactly where we're going with this.


	18. Crit Glitch

**DUMPSHOCK - CRIT GLITCH**

Pepper Potts drove for some time before she even dawned on where she had accidentally started to autopilot towards. She had driven there so many times over the course of the last month, more times than any person other than an employee should ever have to. She found herself sitting in the parking lot to the hospital that had been a sort of second or third home to the woman over the course of the last thirty plus days. The woman had driven there out of an instinctive and unspoken need, finding her way there despite her currently grief at the thought of so terribly abandoning Tony in his hour of need.

_"No. I didn't abandon Tony. He abandoned us." _Pepper mentally corrected herself.

It was true, in her opinion. Over the last month, Tony had slowly started to slip away from them, no matter how she tried to reach for him. But this? Narcotics and alcohol abuse? Pepper could not find it in her to sit idly back and just watch the brilliant man destroy himself. Not the man she had dared to love at one point or another during her career as his personal assistant.

Pepper roughly wiped her cheeks with the back of her sleeve, hoping to hide any tears from Rhodes as she strode into the entrance. This late at night, it was hospital police to bar all visitors, but Rhodes's military status had earned him a great deal of leeway with the standard rules and regulations, garnering Pepper Potts unlimited access to the man. Even if they had tried to stop her, Potts knew she would not be barred; she needed to see Rhodes and now. The receptionist merely nodded and gave a small, tired wave in Pepper's general direction without requesting any identification at all. After thirty days of being there near constantly, the staff had already gotten to know the face and name of Virginia "Pepper"' Potts all too well.

When the elevator doors slid closed behind her, the woman pulled a compact mirror from her purse to check her eyes, still thinking she might be able to salvage herself before seeing Rhodes. He'd been in such a strange emotional state over the last thirty days, calm and resigned to his lot in life, so long as Tony, Kitten, Jonas, and Ironman weren't mentioned in the slightest in his presence. Pepper dabbed her cheeks with a tissue, knowing that the bleary redness to her eyes could not be hidden. It would be obvious that Pepper had been crying, and, to someone who knew her as well as Rhodey did, it would be more than obvious over who.

She stepped from the elevator briskly and moved down the hall at a slow clip to steady herself and pull her wits back together. Rhodes had seen and felt enough already. He didn't deserve her coming to him like this in the middle of the night to serve as a captive audience and shoulder to cry upon. If anything, the roles should have been reversed, but Rhodes wasn't the kind of man to shed any tears. Even after Afghanistan, Rhodes had been cool, calculating, and planning, never giving up on Tony, even after everyone else had.

Hesitantly, Pepper held her breath as she gently eased the door open; Rhodes called to her before she even came in. "Pepper?"

She swallowed before slipping into the room the final bit of the way and quietly shutting the door behind her to offer them privacy. Rhodes had been granted his own room, one of the perks of having friends in high military rank as well as friends like Tony Stark with buckets of money to dump into hospital funding and research. The lights had been dimmed, all but a light over the bed which gave the immobilized man a sickly white cast over his features. His face had thinned over time, and his muscles had already started to diminish. But Pepper didn't look at that. She only saw those round eyes watching her as she sat down, filled with worry and concern for the woman as the man strained to study her entirely.

"You're up rather late," Pepper commented flatly, making the sort of idle banter people always bumble about when they really had something truly important to say.

If the colonel could have shrugged, he would have. "When all you do is sleep and watch television, late is a relative term." Rhodes cracked a weary smile. "I could say the same bout you." He inquired with an authority that demanded an answer, "Pepper, what's wrong?"

The woman gave an exasperated shrug. "Everything."

"Well, it's-" Rhodes darted his eyes to his other side, to the clock. "Almost three in the morning, so I'm taking it it's pretty bad."

"Yeah, you could say that," Pepper mused, still picturing Tony on the floor of his own shop, twitching and shaking in a fit, sobbing as she just turned and left him there to suffer alone.

"What happened?"

Pepper hadn't wanted to burden Rhodes with this, not considering how bad things had gotten between the once close friends, but the woman could not help but just blurt everything out in one breath. "Jarvis called me this morning. He told me I had to get back to the house. And, then, I found him there. He was just..." Pepper forced the lump in her throat back down along with the bile that threatened to burst forth at any second. "James, I think Tony's got a serious drug problem."

Rhodes was silent for a moment, chewing the inside of his cheek in contemplation of this. The revelation hadn't surprised the colonel. He had known Stark for too many years not to admit that this had always been a distinctive possibility granted the eccentric inventor's excessive and addictive personality. And no matter what had happened, no matter how much Rhodes may have felt an awkward sort of hate towards Tony, that didn't change the fact that they had once been friends, that some part of Rhodey still cared enough to not want Tony to through his life away.

When he finally spoke again, it was with a serious air that caught Pepper off guard. "Has he been acting unusually?"

The woman shrugged again with a sigh. "What's unusual with Tony Stark?"

"Pepper," Rhodes said firmly.

She nodded slowly. "When I saw him earlier tonight, he had one of his suits packed up in a box. He told me to give it to you and said there were instructions in the box. He was just so off about it. Tony would never give up one of those."

"Where is this box?" Rhodes asked.

"I had Hogan load it into my trunk before I left for the night," the woman replied quickly.

The colonel frowned. "Go get me those instructions."

xxxx

"What did you do to me?"

Tony Stark grunted the words through gritted teeth as Kitten hauled him by the roots of his hair, dragging him out from by the work desk and dropping him unceremoniously in the center of his own workshop. The girl crouched before his still shaking body. A tender hand of hers reached for him, brushing the clammy skin of his cheek. Tony jerked back, recoiling from her touch as thought it burnt.

She laughed bitterly, the sounds echoing in his empty shop. "What did I do?" Kitten drew close, sneering in her ear. "You did this to yourself, asshole."

xxxx

_"Moving into position." _

_"Residence is surrounded."_

_"Confirm go?"_

xxxx

Tony lashed out as best he could with his unsteady limbs, swinging out at KItten. The movement was ungainly and awkward at best, fueled by rage, pure and simple. The problem with emotion driven attacks was that they were seldom well thought out and rarely worked the way they were intended. As it was, Kitten merely jumped back away from the punch he threw at her. Tony's fist swung wildly through the air, striking nothing and merely serving to hurl himself off balance. Tony almost fell back to the floor but threw out a steadying arm to keep himself upright.

"Bitch," he snarled.

Kitten shrugged impassively, without a care in the world. "I've been called worse by better people."

The girl rose and kicked him square in the chest, sending Tony flat on his back. The driving blow knocked the wind right out of his lungs. He coughed for air, gagging on it as the man instinctively gasped for too much too soon. Kitten stood over him and spat, actually spat, right on his face, before stomping down on his right hand with a heavily booted foot, twisting her heel and digging it in upon landing. Tony clenched his jaw shut; he wouldn't give Kitten the satisfaction of screaming. She drew back and kicked him, in the jaw this time, sending electric lights scattering across his vision.

Kitten stepped back, circling in this dance. "Too weak, too easy."

Tony's mind clawed out for him, hauling his consciousness along the strings of coding that danced about him, and finding the appropriate ones. Tony licked his lips, uncertain what exactly to do now that he had hold of it. The inventor felt his own memories link with the familiar programming that bore the eerie flavor of his own hands and creations, throwing himself into it.

His robots came to life about them, reaching with graspers and one with the errant fire extinguisher. Tony felt a smirk grace his lips at the thought of the robots coming to his aid once more, and as Kitten dodged their hands, nimbly dancing between them. Tony made a mental note to overhaul their drive trains when this was all over, maybe give them interchangeable gear ratios like a transmission to allow for the torque he needed during work and the speed needed to defend the home against mercenaries like Kitten. His relief was only momentary, for, as Kitten moved, she drew her Ares Predator and fired wildly upon the robots, managing to hit integral parts and knocking them offline one by one until they went dead and lifeless, cold hunks of steel and fried electronics. The last even spun as she shot out the central panel, essentially knocking out the central nervous system, before the girl returned to her prey.

"Cute, for an otaku." Kitten glared. "Any other little tricks? No? Good."

The mercenary drew back to dole out another kick, but Tony had been ready for her this time. The passing distraction of his little robotic army had been more than enough for Tony to gather himself for a rally. His hands shot out, curling about her ankle, and tugging hard as he did. The inventor dragged the girl to the ground. The girl landed beside him with a surprisingly satisfying thud. Any strength, any fight left in Tony bubbled up in boiling rage. He rolled onto her, his hands moving out of instinctive drive now. They found her pale, delicate neck and squeezed down. Kitten gagged and writhed beneath him, but Tony only saw red as he closed down upon the flesh of her throat.

Her eyes closed slightly, and a few, strange words managed to escape his hold, liquid and unknown to him. And, then, when her eyes snapped open, there was a vigor and fury that hadn't been there a moment ago, along with two thin streams of blood like crimson tears. Kitten moved suddenly and without warning, finding the strength to almost shrug off the pain and fight more. Her legs shifted under Tony and struck out, kneeing him in the sternum again and again until he couldn't hold his grip anymore. Tony stumbled back with the last hit, flopping onto the ground as the two of them lay sprawled out there for a moment, gasping for breath.

_"Proximity alert."_

The words slammed in Tony's mind, firing with red warning signals. Alarms rang out, but only in the inventor's ears. He knew Kitten couldn't here the piercing claxons that wailed in his skull, reverberating sharply and painfully within him. A schematic of his own home appeared in the corner of his vision, not unlike the Smartlink in his own Mark III suit. And, to Tony's great dismay, the map highlighted people moving in on his on home, swooping about the mansion with the precision and care of a tactical strike force. He staggered to his feet, driven by a fresh dose of adrenaline as it surged through his veins.

Tony laughed madly with intense and downright ludricous relief. Rhodes and Pepper. It had to be them. Pepper had to have gone to Rhodes and gotten military assistance. Where else would such a large and well organized team come from?

"Company's coming," he announced in sheer delight as he turned to her.

Kitten rolled onto her side, wiping a bit of blood from where it had dribbled from her mouth and down her chin. "Yeah, but who's fucking company, moron? I didn't invite anyone, and, last I checked, neither did you."

xxxx

_Rhodey-_

_I know things have been rough between us sometimes. I'm not the easiest person to get on with, I know. But I honestly never meant to hurt you. Something happened. Something Jonas or Kitten did. I haven't been the same since. I can't explain it. _

_I've got to set things right again, and there's only one way. I'm going to find Kitten and Jonas, and I'm going to make them pay. I've run the numbers and the probabilities, and you, of all people, know my math is never wrong. I'm probably not going to be walking away from this one._

_I'd say 'forgive me' or something apologetic, but I doubt you'll accept it from me after everything I've put you through. So, yeah. You know how this goes._

_-ts_

Pepper read the note aloud as her heart shattered. All this time it had been Kitten and Jonas, and he'd been planning all along to go on a suicide mission after them. Tony had known in the living room that evening when he presented her with the box. He'd always known. And whatever had happened to him to break him so badly, Pepper now knew it hadn't been by Tony's own hand. It had been those two damned children the entire time. And Pepper had left him to the wolves, completely and utterly defenseless.

Rhodes leveled a gaze upon her. "Where's Tony now?"

"I left him... I left him at the house." A tear rolled down Pepper's cheek.

But Rhodes's barked order, cracking like a whip, like the colonel she had always known him to be under his sweet smiles and caring eyes, sent her into motion. "GO!"

xxxx

Tony's glee slipped away from him when she said that. Kitten had a valid point. Tony hadn't called for help, and neither had she. Last he checked, Rhodes still probably hated the man, and Pepper didn't seem in any mood to humor him. No, if it had been Pepper or Rhodes, there would have been doctors and people in starched white coats with straightjackets coming for him. A dark horror settled into his chest as Kitten stood, glancing about wildly.

Tony had never seen Kitten afraid in the few times he'd fought against her. She'd always been a pillar of confidence and strength, even against immeasurably bad odds. Kitten had faced certain death with a dead calm and an almost glib nature at times, not unlike Tony in his Ironman facade. Now, her respiration had increased, and her eyes were wide as she dropped the clip from her pistol and loaded a fresh one. The girl looked back and forth, sweeping her gaze over the room and the windows, her Predator drawn and her other palm up, as though aiming with both.

"Jarvis, lock down," Tony ordered sternly.

With that order, the entire house should have bolted down and buttoned up, turning its self into, essentially, a giant panic room. With that signal ordered, no one would be able to get in or out without Tony Stark's own verbal confirmation. The artificial intelligence should have promptly secured the home with that command. And, yet, to Tony's great discomfort, nothing happened, not a damned thing.

"Shit." The inventor swore before bellowing, "Jarvis? Answer me!"

Again, there came not a response from the artificial intelligence. The white lines of coding that had been surfacing every time the computer system spoke vanished. It was like the coding had been dragged from the home. Tony watched, his mouth hanging open as it swirled and drifted up the stairs and out of the home, hauled by some unseen force.

"Jarvis!"

However, it was gone. There was no bringing Jarvis back, as the last shreds of coding were hauled from the system of the home. Tony still could not quite fathom how he understood and implicitly knew this to be true. But, it was, and he knew. Something wrenched Jarvis from the home and ripped the coding to shreds.

Kitten regrouped, containing herself before giving a quick wave and turning to run. "Well, it's been fun, but time to go."

She went to bolt, but Tony caught her quite firmly by the wrist and pulled hard, swinging her about and into a concrete wall. Her nose spurted blood from the impact, splashing the wall with a tiny splatter. Kitten grunted and wavered, but the man slammed her into the wall. This fight wasn't over until Tony said it was over. In his mental map, the intruders had already surrounded the home, even scouting the servant's passage, and, without much hopes of escape, Tony knew he had no other choice but to milk this opportunity with a cornered Kitten to get something, anything from her. Satisfaction. Answers. Suffering. Anything.

"Who are they?" the man demanded.

Kitten flinched as Tony pressed her harder into the solid, concrete wall. "You tell me, shit for brains."

"WHO ARE THEY?" Tony shouted in her ear.

Kitten chuckled as best she could under his weight. "They're probably your men."

Tony could see the men entering the house upstairs, moving in a search pattern. His mind mentally categorized the weapons they held. And, oddly, he recognized a node, somehow, a bundle of electrons and information moving with the team. It bore the closed warchalking symbol, with no ISP listed over it.

Ivy Maddox's warning hit Tony, looping in his mind. _"Don't trust Jonas."_

"Jonas..." Tony breathed.

Kitten started under his hold. "No..."

Both of their eyes turned at the same exact time, just long enough to see the electronic locks on the door at the base of the stairs leading into the lab clicking open. Tony drew in a sharp breath as a familiar object bounced down the steps, rolling as it landed at the foot of the steps. His mind and all the strings of information collapsed in on him as his body crashed to the floor, no longer in any control, adrenaline or not.

"JONAS!" Kitten shrieked in what could have been pure terror or complete rage.

From his vantage point, Tony couldn't be certain what the girl saw at the base of the stairs as footsteps thundered into the lab. He could see her, though, and he watched as she dropped the Predator and held out both hands. Her eyes narrowed as fire flared within her. The phoenix tattoo between her shoulders seemed to glow and glimmer. Kitten's face went serious and grim as she took a single step forward.

She shouted in a piercing battle cry, "And then I said, I shall die in my nest and I shall multiply my days as the sand!"

The world condensed with a hot burst, but, when Kitten's mouth dropped open, Tony knew something had gone horribly wrong. When her usual little pyrotechnic display when off with a deafening boom and a burst of incinerating heat, her mark was way off. The resounding explosion went off right in her face, the concussion wave throwing Kitten back and into the wall with a loud crack of bone meeting solid concrete. When she hit the floor, the girl didn't move a muscle, hardly drawing breath. Smoke rose from off her body in puffs and clouds. The sickening stench of charred feathers filled the air, distinct and god-awfully unique in its own right. Tony twisted as best as his body would allow to see her, bleeding from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth in thick trails of scarlet.

Tony reached for her, but darkness encroached upon him as well as a familiar voice spoke over him in the confusion. "All remaining subjects contained. You're on damage control."

Unconsciousness swallowed him whole.

xxxx

Pepper redlined her car along the highway and up the curving hill roads towards Tony Stark's mansion atop the cliffs of Malibu. Only her heart raced faster than the silver Audi she drove, tucking and diving into turns. In her hand, she gripped her Blackberry, constantly hitting redial on Tony's number in a desperate attempt to get him to answer his phone for her.

However, as she rounded the last bend and the Stark house came into sight, Pepper slammed down on the breaks, stopping the car with a harsh squeal. Flames licked the heavens, and smoke poured from the mansion. The roof had already collapsed in one place, and, when another explosion took out a load bearing wall, sparks danced into the night. There was no way anything could have survived that, not even Ironman.

Pepper rested her head against her steering wheel and sobbed, no longer able to hold the floodgates back. "Tony..."

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: I told you we where getting slightly closer to answers. And, I promise, that, although I keep kicking Tony's ass, he will kick ass. It's just one of those, you've got to hit rock bottom before you can crawl your way up. Kitten did it once, and look at her! ... oh... wait... you don't know where Kitten came from yet. Guess you'll just have to hang out a couple of chapters to see. wink wink nudge nudge

Thanks to everyone who's still out there reading, and, by the by, bonus points and sympathy hugs for everyone who knows from experience in Shadowrun or other games JUST how bad a crit glitch really is! I recently crit glitched on a Dodge test. sigh My poor character that ended up with a chest full of flichette!


	19. System Error

**DUMPSHOCK - SYSTEM ERROR**

Defending the free and occasionally not-so free world was a full time job for S.H.I.EL.D. Agent Nick Fury. Terrorists and biological threats never seemed to have any sense of good timing, striking at all hours of the day. Crack of dawn, middle of a beautiful afternoon, dead of night. His employment often required Fury to drop everything and rush back to the "office," as he preferred to call Central. Once, he had even been paged and summoned for service in midst of a steamy interlude with a rather attractive model - whom he promised would remain nameless - and left his fair maiden unattended in favor of business.

So, when 5:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time finally rolled around and the world seemed in good hands, Fury took that as his opportunity to head back to his spacious loft overlooking the East Village for a well deserved day of rest before returning to Central for the nigh shift. It had been a trying 22 hour shift, dodging missiles here and there, more often literally than figuratively. The man still felt primed and charged, ready for fight or for anything, really. If it weren't so very late, or morning, actually, Fury would have tucked over to McSorley's Old Ale House for a quick round of the traditional light and dark ales. However, Fury's unique employment left little room for any social life, nor entire days for rest and relaxation of any worthwhile amount. It was a rare opportunity he knew needed to be relished for every second it was worth.

Upon his return to his loft, the agent subconsciously proceeded to survey and secure the perimeter before even thinking about sitting down; after that, it took Nick Fury a grand total of twenty minutes to gear down for the day. While Nick Fury hadn't gone home "loaded for bears," but he never traveled unarmed, not even in the relative security of New York City compared to some of the other locales he'd frequented. He felt naked without at least something on him, and ill at ease without ensuring the security of his surroundings. It was his training and his profession affecting his home life.

Fury took one last look at the world as the sun rose over the East River, sending piercing rays, surveying all that lay before him. The world had always been a fragile place consisting of uneasy truces and delicate balances, but it had never seemed so precariously perched upon the edge of oblivion as it did these days. Weapons of mass destruction, biological threats that rendered flesh from bone, and a whole slew of wannabe evil villains masquerading around in obscenely tasteless costumes. Those days, S.H.I.EL.D.'s work was never done, resulting in a ludicrous backlog of investigations and paperwork as near total disaster was narrowly avoided every few hours.

At least with Ironman around, it had kept some of the mess in check. Over the time that Tony Stark had paraded around in his red and gold exosuit, Fury had gotten a bit used to it. After all, who didn't appreciate a hand in their job? And it wasn't as though Fury's inner child didn't get a giddy little thrill out of the prospect of working alongside a man in what amounted to a robot suit, like something fallen right out of the pages of an old school comic book. However, a month earlier, after his visit with Obadiah Stane, Stark stopped donned the armor completely, slipping into a life of seclusion. And, yet, the world moved on day by day, without the intervention of the infamous Ironman, somehow scraping by as tenaciously as it always did.

Nick Fury shook his head slowly. All had been very right with the world when he left Central, with a relatively low threat level compared to normal, so why did he fell like there was something so very wrong? Fury's instincts were as sharp as ever. He shrugged it off along with his clothes down to his skivvies before lying down in his bed, his cellphone settled beside his pillow and his Walther P99 resting securely in his hand, just in case.

It felt like he had only just closed his eyes when the phone rang, jerking him to instantly wakefulness, but, as Fury glanced to the clock, an hour had already passed. "Fury."

"Colonel Fury, you might wish to turn on your television." One of the office grunts.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent rubbed the sleep from his eyes, setting the Walther in favor of the remote to the plasma screen television that rarely saw usage. "What channel?"

"Any news station."

Fury shrugged to himself but followed the suggestion, immediately going right to CNN. Generally, Fury preferred BBC News to CNN. As a British station, BBC offered less biased news inn regards to current events in America, as the station had little to no interest in swaying opinions of Americans. The BBC also tended to broadcast real news from all over the globe as opposed to the trivial fluff and "human interest stories" most American broadcasting companies used to fill time as opposed to offering insight to global events. However, CNN, just so happened to be the first station saved into his remote, and, when Fury saw for himself, he did not change the channel.

The grunt went on, rather reluctantly. "Sir? There's something else you should know."

xxxx

_"This is CNN Newsroom. Good morning, I'm Tony Harris with breaking news. We've just received word from our Los Angeles affiliate that the Malibu home of millionaire Tony Stark caught fire in the early morning before escalating to a four-alarm fire. While Stark was known for his revolutionary arms innovations, he is perhaps best known for infamous claim to be the so-called 'Ironman' vigilante. We go live to the scene..."_

xxxx

Pepper Potts bolted from her silver Audi until the heel of her Jimmy Choo's caught on something on the sidewalk and snapped, tripping her. The woman fell to her knees at the end of the driveway and sank in on herself, not caring for the first time in all her years as Tony Stark's personal assistant what she looked like in front of all the camera crews and news reporters. Potts had always keep a keen distance between herself and the media, letting her employer's exploits take the spotlight, all the while maintaining a personal air of stoicism becoming of a professional like her.

Judging by the reaction of the reporters already on scene, the woman had to be an absolute mess. The few field reporters Pepper knew and recognized from having shared brief small talk during nervous moments bracing for another of Tony Stark's PR bombshells, gave her sympathetic looks and steered their camera crews far from her, but the paparazzi swarmed and circled her like vultures, snapping away at their cameras. They moved in a flurry, excited and shouting at her. Questions were belted out at her as recorders and cameras were shoved in her face, but Pepper heard not a single one of them.

She knelt on the ground not far from the traitorous Jimmy Choo heel, staring at the engulfed mansion and the conflagration that the several fire squads battled to control. Her body trembled between adrenaline, fear, and sorrow as hot tears streamed down her cheeks. Pepper knew her mascara must have been running down with those tears from her, puffy, red eyes. Her knee throbbed where it had struck the concrete, bleeding through a gaping and growing hole in her stockings. The paparazzi and the tabloids would have a field day at this sight in the morning. She could see the headlines now, _"Stark's PA Breaks Down" _or maybe something a bit more suggestive about her relationship with Tony. A daze settled over her in all the anarchy.

Someone shouted behind her, barking angry orders, but Pepper didn't hear the voice lost in the confusion of the blinking flashes of the cameras. She hardly noticed when a contingent of police officers swooped around her, forming a protective circle about the broken down and sobbing woman, driving the photographers back. The fact that something drastic had changed to her situation only dawned on Pepper when a hand clamped down on her shoulder and she glanced about into the concerned, but familiar and genuinely welcome face of Agent Phil Coulson in this sea of clamoring strangers.

"Miss Potts, Colonel Fury sends his regards," Coulson announced as he helped the shaken woman to her feet. "If you would please walk this way."

Pepper nodded mutely and allowed Coulson to guide her towards an awaiting black Denali. Coulson moved slowly as Pepper staggered and swayed awkwardly on one heel before the woman gave up, tore off both shoes, and tossed them aside, not caring where her formerly chic Jimmy Choo's ended up. As they moved, a ring of police officers and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents formed a tight perimeter and drove back all of the bystanders, paparazzi and curiously gawking neighbors alike, to a safe distance. Coulson gestured before they even reached the vehicle, and an agent appeared from nowhere to open the rear driver's side door for the woman. Like a perfect gentleman, he eased Pepper about and motioned for her to sit. Pepper couldn't argue. She could only watch the flickering light over the landscaping and the rush of firefighters darting about in what seemed like highly organized chaos. He handed her a bottle of water and stepped back for an agent to unnecessarily check her knee for any serious injury.

"Thank you," Pepper finally forced herself to whisper politely.

Coulson smiled. The agent flipped open a cellphone, punched a number on speed and waited for a moment before announcing to whoever he called, "Coulson here. Miss Potts is secure. No sign of Stark." At the sound of his name, Pepper shuddered, biting her lip to keep from crying again, but the agent leaned close to her and puts the phone in her hand. "Miss Potts, Colonel Fury would like to speak with you."

She nodded weakly and made herself put to the phone to her ear, even though the tiny device felt like it weighed a ton. "Yes?"

Fury sounded harsh and angry. "Miss Potts, where is Stark?"

Pepper's lip quivered. "He was in the house, I think."

xxxx

Colonel Nick Fury was not a man to say 'no' to lightly. Thusly, when he ordered an immediate shut down of John F. Kennedy International Airport for a S.H.I.E.L.D. Boeing C-137 Stratoliner to take off immediately, there came no opposition from air traffic control nor the FAA. Both owed S.H.I.E.LD. highly for the agency's services through the years, and both owed a great debt to Fury himself. They waived security protocol for the colonel and arranged a motorcade to escort Fury to the jet as the flight crew furiously rushed through their checklists. In no time at all, Nick Fury had settled into a chair on the empty jet, and it was in the air, opening up the skies over New York for regular air traffic. He had to get to California, and quickly.

The man sighed and took out his phone to make another call once he knew it was safe to do so once more.

xxxx

_"This is a Fox News Update. Current reports suggest Tony Stark, industrialist, inventor, and Ironman, was in his home at the time the fire broke out. Police and fire crews are not making any official statements..."_

xxxx

Rhodes could hardly believe the news he was listening to in his hospital room, nor the pictures he watched of the mansion he'd been in so very often crumbling amid the flames. Somewhere in there was his friend. Yes, there had been bad times between them recently, but that didn't change the fact that Tony was his friend.

He watched in a solemn vigil as the images continued to pour through media channels, piped into every home in America. The colonel distantly wondered what the rest of the free world thought of this development. He knew that at least two other people would be ailing as much as he at the thought; Pepper and Hogan. But what about the rest of America? Would anyone else shed a tear for the man who had been described, on more than one occasion in his youth, as America's favorite son? Probably not. They all saw him as a womanizing alcoholic, and, based off of his inclinations prior to Afghanistan, they had been right. But Rhodes knew, just as much as he knew that Pepper and Hogan were also aware of this, that Tony Stark had changed and for the better. Rhodes settled, letting his eyes close as he watched, and he wondered, for longer than a passing thought, what Obadiah Stane would have to say about all this granted what had happened between Stane and Stark over his weapons.

_"...currently asking that we reposition further away from the property in fear of further explosions due..." _

A small smirk appeared on Rhodes's face as he only vaguely listened to the reporter babbling inanely on the screen before the rushing crews of firefighters and police officers. Tony had never wanted any more of his projects or his weapons to fall into the wrong hands. At least, then, with everything so perfectly incinerated, Tony would at least have that final gift. Tony Stark, as always, had the last laugh, even in the face of certain death. Tony always had the last laugh.

No. Rhodes reassured himself as he started to doze. Tony Stark had survived Afghanistan and Stane, he would survive this. Hell, Tony was probably holed up somewhere with a good, stiff drink, complaining over having to design a whole new house all over again and build a new suit.

_"Yup. That's where Tony is."_

When he woke up again, sunlight poured through the windows and illuminated three S.H.I.E.L.D. agents standing at attention; Rhodes immediately knew there was something extremely wrong.

xxxx

By the time Nick Fury's plane landed in Los Angeles and he pulled up in his car to the the police barricades cordoning off the area around the Stark mansion, the perimeter had already been secured, and the fire contained. Investigators were already descending upon what remained of the once grand residence. He had already made all the appropriate arrangements, and the arson investigators who would normally be there had been quite conveniently replaced with those on the S.H.I.E.L.D. payroll.

He brushed past a crowd of curious onlookers and through the police line with an air of authority that had been well earned. A few daring paparazzi clicked away furiously at their cameras, but, under a stern glare, they stopped. Fury did not even need to say a single word; his grim expression did all the talking for him. They even backed away fearfully. He'd already been briefed upon landing about the limited but explosive findings of the investigators. The paparazzi and tabloids would have their story in a few hours, but that did not mean Fury would condone it nor add anything else to the rumors if he could avoid it.

Fury strode up the road, closer to the charred skeleton of the house atop the cliffs. He moved with a clear sense of purpose towards the center of the hubbub and two black Denalis that had become a sort of command center. A pair of agents were typing away on a computer, uploading images from a digital camera, while another went through an evidence kit where he sat hanging out of the back of the one Denali. The other appeared quite buttoned up and empty.

After a moment, he spotted a familiar face among the crowd of S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives and gave a curt nod. "Coulson."

The agent turned at the sound of his name and smiled tersely. "Colonel Fury."

"Give me an update."

"Miss Potts has been secured," Coulson announced succinctly. "A team of agents has been sent to Colonel Rhodes's hospital to ensure his safety."

"Good, good," Fury said, nodding slowly. "And where is Miss Potts now?"

Coulson gave a sheepish look before tossing his head in the direction of the SUV behind him. "In there." He followed Fury as the colonel peeked into the vehicle to the woman sprawled across the back seat. "She nodded off an hour or two ago."

"Why is she still here?" the colonel bellowed, angrily; even as his voice rumbled in deep bass, the woman stirred.

Coulson swallowed. "She wouldn't leave until she knew for certain."

"Does she know?" Fury inquired quickly as Pepper slowly and stiffly rose.

Coulson shook his head. "No."

The man waved Coulson away and opened the door to the SUV as Pepper drew herself up and curled her feet under her in a demure positioning, allowing for the agent to sit beside her on the far side of the SUV. Fury made sure to close the door beside him and seal them off from the outside world, locking out all the sounds and trapping any words shared between them inside. No one would hear the words he had to tell her, not even the paparazzi.

Coulson jumped into the driver's seat, as another, nameless agent scrambled into the front passenger seat. Coulson turned the ignition and crept the Denali through the sea of gapers and onto the highway. Pepper felt her heart sinking with each tiny tick of the odometer away from what had been Tony's home, as her concern rose. It piqued when the Denali slipped into traffic on a highway leading North.

Finally, Pepper drew in a deep breath. "Agent Fury, what's going on?"

Fury coolly replied, "Miss Potts, you are no longer safe without military escort."

"Why not?" the woman whispered.

"We have reason to suspect that the fire was an assassination attempt." There was a cold distance to his voice that unnerved the woman and told her more than he actually said; when Tony first went missing, Rhodes had used the very same tone with her.

Pepper shook her head solemnly. "You're not telling me everything."

"No, I'm not," he admitted honestly but callously, his eyes scanning the road for any possible tails from the media or countless potential enemies.

"Tell me," Pepper growled as the vehicle pulled up at a red light. When the man did not give any small hint of a response or sign that he'd heard her, the woman reached for her door. "Tell me or I'm gone."

"If you're gone, you're dead," Fury replied harshly.

"Tell me."

"There were two bodies located in the initial sweep of the house, suspected to be those of Tony Stark and his attacker. The features are badly charred, but we can use dental records to make an identification." Pepper raised an eyebrow to suggest there was more, to which Agent Fury sighed and admitted, "Miss Potts, we have good reason to believe that you're in serious danger."

Potts surprised the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. They had been expecting her to start, to panic, to respond in any way other than how she actually addressed the situation. Pepper's face remained as studious, calm and collected as ever. She sat upright in her seat, smoothing her shirt and skirt as best she could despite both her tumble upon arriving at the fire and her previous nap. Pepper leveled a rather sharp gaze upon Fury, demanding but reserved at the same time, a mask to her true emotions.

Instead, Pepper Potts coldly demanded, "What evidence suggests that?"

Fury gave her a small nod of respect and explained, "There was a security breach at Central sometime this morning between 5:20 and 5:45 Eastern Standard Time. Obadiah Stane was abducted from our custody during that time frame by unknown intruders. We have reason to believe that the assassin hired on Mr. Stark was under the employer of the intruders at S.H.I.E.L.D., suggesting that anyone close to Stark may be in serious danger."

"Rhodes..." she breathed.

"Already taken care of."

xxxx

Tony Stark awoke slowly into a deep darkness, his muscles aching and his skull throbbing with each and every heartbeat. He felt disoriented and stiff, his movements awkward. He lie on a cold, hard, tiled floor, a warm body pressed against his back. He stayed there, still for a moment, listening cautiously before giving any indication that he'd come to. His breathes echoed in the dark, along with the other's, but the unknown individual's respiration sounded evenly and light, the soft, rhythmic hush of deep slumber.

Finally, Tony moved to rub his forehead, but strong restraints held his hands locked behind his back. The sudden and clear sensation of being bound securely dredged Tony to immediate clarity and action. He jumped up and knelt in the darkness, straining against the leather restraints and tugging upon them. Tony twisted feebly in them, trying to slip his hands out of them unsuccessfully until his wrists burnt before sinking to his knees in only mild defeat. This was only a minor setback, he assured himself; he'd seen far worse situations and lived to tell the tale with panache, style, and some mild stretching of the truth to his favor.

The inventor rose to study his surroundings, carefully moving in the dark by sliding his feet across the floor and letting as many of his other senses take survey. The air stank of antiseptic, with an underlying scent of iron that left a metallic, almost bloody taste on Tony's palette. He took a small measure of the room based off his blind explorations, and found it to be no larger than 10 by 10. When Tony reached the walls, he put his back to them so his hands could feel for any doors or gratings, any means of escape from wherever this was. His explorations yielded curious results when Tony found one wall to be cooler and almost plastic to the touch, with tiny slits in it, but he could not stretch his arms enough to trace them.

The other occupant of the cell moaned with a low, almost female sounding exhalation. Tony approached cautiously, turning his back to his unwilling companion so could try to discern this female's identity. He found another set of locked restraints upon the other prisoner and felt the heat of fever rising from off the body. His hands moved up a lean, muscular arm to the face, and to quite familiar features there soaked in something sticky and hot, draining from her eyes, nose, and mouth in thick swatches.

"Kitten..."

The girl made another soft noise and shifted under his touch, somehow growing warmer if it were possible, and Tony threw himself away from her prone form. There was no telling what she would do when she woke in a confined space to her unarmed enemy. He scrambled back and into a corner, keeping his ears pricked to the sounds of Kitten as she moved. Her clothing rustled, her breathing caught, but, then, the girl went still again. Tony breathed a sigh of relief and settled into the corner, letting his aching head rest against the cool concrete behind him.

Tony sat there for some time, listening to the girl's breathing in the darkness. Hours could have passed, or it could have been minutes. The man had no frame of reference to gauge how long he'd been conscious. Boredom always annoyed Tony to no end, and, so, he spent some time listing to himself the specifications of the hotrod and adjustments he would like to make on it.

After a time, Kitten stirred again, murmuring in her sleep and begging as though for her very life. "No... please... please don't..." She grew silent for but a minute, if that, before continuing in her vain pleas. "No..."

There was a very real fear to her voice, sharp and pained. Tony furrowed his eyebrows; the mental listing immediately ceased as he focused all his energy and concentration on the body lying out in the middle of the floor. Kitten groaned in her sleep, the rustling of fabric indicating some sort of motion. Her breaths grew ragged and quick, as though in the thoughts of some nightmare.

"NO!" Her voice dropped to a hushed whisper. "Not again..."

There came a swift motion as Kitten rocketed awake and bolted upright. Tony's ears caught the sound of her and tracked the motion of the girl. She moved back and away from him the opposite direction, lurching and flopping across the floor as though in a desperate flight. She gasped as she fled, but Kitten didn't make it far. Tony had to smirk to himself when the girl slammed into the plastic wall, flopping to the ground with a thud and a tiny cry.

"Be careful," Tony teased in bitter, scathing sarcasm, enjoying the mental image of the assassin running head first into the wall in her haste.

Kitten swore, and swore vehemently in ways he'd never heard from a lady that left even his well seasoned ears burning mildly from the severity as the words molded together into one profanity that would have made Tony Soprano blush. "ShitShitShitSonovamotherfuckingbitchwhore."

The inventor chuckled mirthlessly, trying to find some small measure of nervous delight at her anger. "Same to you."

The pair of unlikely companions sat in silence for some time, neither wanting to say a word to the other at all. Neither had anything to say, truly, to their enemy. Tony remained in his corner, listening as Kitten let out a deep breath and rearranged herself on the other side of the room before growing still. Time dragged on at a ridiculously and agonizingly slow pace in the darkness without something to occupy Tony's mind.

Finally, the inventor broke the silence when he simply couldn't take the boredom anymore. "Where are we?"

Kitten remained silent and stoic.

Tony grunted to the girl again. "Hey."

The mercenary made a muffled sound but said not a thing.

"You know where we are, don't you?" The man sighed heavily at the girl's refusal to acknowledge him, wondering if Yinsen had felt the same irritation that now cropped up within him when Tony initially refused to do anything in that cave in Afghanistan. "Look, Kitten, we've got to work together if we're going to get out of here."

Finally, the girl spoke up with a huff of annoyance and an audible shift of her weight. "What, like some made-for-tv movie? What's next after that? A touching heart-to-heart following by loads of hugging? Fat fucking chance."

"It's the only chance we've got," Tony argued, already tired of the conversation and the mercenary's hot temper.

She sniffed in quick disdain and spoke with a grim resolve mixed with deep resignation that unsettled Tony in a way. "We're going to die here, so if you don't mind shutting the fuck up, I'd really like to take the time to make my peace with the divine before we go."

He couldn't help himself. "Bitch."

"Asshat," Kitten snapped back from her place in the darkness.

Blinding lights flashed on about them, blinding Tony after so long in the dark. He closed his eyes and blinked to adjust them. Kitten hissed as she drew back, recoiling to the back of the cell. Tony got to his feet but stayed crouched where he was as Kitten staggered to her feet uneasily, retreating to pace nervously along the back of the cell like a caged lioness. Her face and shirt were stained scarlet with blood, giving her a ferocious, predatory look as she stalked and skulked.

They were in, just as he had initially suspected, a small cell with white walls and white tiles. Three of the walls were solid concrete without any vents or seams. One of the walls was a clear, glass like material, smooth and perfect, save the tiniest of seams that outlined both a door and tiny slot at the base, looking out on a pristine but featureless hall. Cameras pointed into the cell, giving Tony the unsettling feeling of being back in that with Yinsen under Raza and Abu's watchful gaze through CCTV.

A man stood beyond the glass in a pressed, regal business suit, arms folded across his chest like a displeased father as a smirk graced his lips. "Well, I'm glad to see you two are getting along well."

**XXXX**

Author's Notes : **SONNENGOTT**... I don't know if you're a male, or a female (I'm betting female, judging by the avatar on your profile), but I wish to hug, glomp, kiss, and/or possibly have your babies. YOU UNDERSTAND SHADOWRUN!!

Yeah, Kitten can be a bit of a "broken" character at times, but there is a reason, I assure you, that she goes so overboard. She actually started out on the drawing board as one of those annoying NPCs. Y'know the ones that should be sooooo easy to take out but, for some odd reason, they roll like gods while you end up with nothing but glitches (this REGULARLY happens with the group I game with oddly enough, to the point where we occasionally play Benny Hill music as things get to the point of hilariously bad). It was just, as the plot skeleton developed, she became more and more interesting as things went alone and went from being a minor character to a major element of the story. I ended up making stats for her (sadly, she's not that cool stats wise, including her 0 perception and a firearms skill group of 2- but, hey, she was up against slow moving robots with little to no dodge or reaction!)

As per several of the other things you pointed out, Sonnegott, now I don't feel so alone a few chapters ahead of everyone else! I told you _Shadowrun_ players would know where I was going, and these are all plot points I had started to slowly address. The otaku and technomancer thing I already had to address in fleshing out the skeleton of the story, and it does become a major plot point. I hope you can bear with the compromises I ended up having to make to bridge the gaps (including seventy years of technological advancement) between _Ironman _and _Shadowrun._

Why does Kitten always go "cocked, locked, and ready to rock" with her magic? Well... you'll find out soon enough, so stay tuned!


	20. ISP

**DUMPSHOCK - ISP**

_"Investigators have located what appears to be the remains of a man, potentially millionaire industrialist Tony Stark, and an unknown female..."_

Pepper Potts only vaguely listened to the radio in the Denali as the road slipped by almost unnoticed. They had been driving for what seemed like hours, each passing mile one little step further from her old life. She listened mutely as Nick Fury made various phone calls throughout the drive, arranging things. Occasionally, the woman's ears pricked to conversations, an instinctive habit from Tony's tendency to make plans and verbal agreements that would have been completely forgotten were it not for Pepper's mild spying to put things on Stark's agenda. Yet the words slipped from the woman's memory almost as soon as they were heard, perhaps droned out by the hum of the SUV's engine or Coulson's clacking away at keys on a ToughBook laptop.

Finally, familiar territory passed by, and Pepper recognized the hazy border area between California and Nevada. Further confirmation came when they passed a sign proclaiming in bubbly letters "Welcome to Nevada" over a technicolor sunset. She'd been there dozens of times before, mostly against her will after one of her employer's frequent ruses. Tony and Hogan would convince her to join them for a drive to the plant, only to deviate far off course for the twin sin cities of Las Vegas and Reno, a complete accident by their claims. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had been driving in aimless directions for a short time, as though unsure themselves of where to go, but, now, they had a definite destination.

Pepper sighed, resting her head against the tinted window as the Denali crossed the border into Clark County, Nevada. "I'm not in the mood to gamble, Agent Fury."

"We're not going to gamble, I assure you, Miss Potts."

Pepper shivered at the tone of his voice, rubbing her chilled arms. "Then where are we going?"

"One of the few places I can be certain you and Colonel Rhodes will be safe," Fury answered quite cryptically and flatly, already punching another phone number into his cell.

The woman rolled her eyes. "And where exactly is that?"

Fury hardly blinked. "Groom Lake." His phone rang, and, not too any great surprise, the agent answered cooly with just his name. "Fury." Pepper stared out the window at the terrain, half-heartedly listening in the one-sided conversation. "Yes." There was a pause as the caller spoke in a volume too soft for the woman to accurately pick out any words, before Fury nodded. "I understand. Send the files."

The agent hung up his phone and sat it on the seat of the Denali beside him. Without a word or order, Coulson eased the ToughBook shut and passed it over his shoulder to his superior officer. Fury took it, set it on his knees, and opened the computer.

After a moment, Fury spoke to the woman without turning his head to her, his eyes still fixated upon whatever files had been sent to them. "I'm very sorry to have to tell you this, Miss Potts, but it has been confirmed. One of the bodies recovered was identified as Mr. Stark."

The woman's heart caved in on its self, crushed by the revelation. "He can't be dead." She shook her head, feeling a single, warm droplet roll down her cheek, but, after all the tears Pepper had spent in her breakdown at the end of the driveway, that was all the woman had to shed. "They told me he was dead in Afghanistan, but he came back. He's fine." She caught her breath at the hope, scrambling to put take back control of her emotions and put back on her prim and professional facade. "He's probably just sleeping off another hangover with another girl."

Fury shook his head in an emotionless motion. "Not this time."

"How can you know?" Pepper felt herself trembling as her heart desperately struggled against her mind to express the gripping sorrow and grief that took her. "How can you be so sure?"

"Dental records," Fury replied nonchalantly. "Much faster than DNA testing. Results are fairly immediate." The agent turned the laptop about to face the woman, pointing the images on the screen of the ToughBook. "This one is our victim's dental profile." His finger moved over to the other image. "This is Stark's." Fury tapped one of the files and dragged it over the other, revealing a perfect match. "See?"

"No..." Pepper whispered the word.

Fury gave her a strange look that bordered between knowing and comforting, almost detached in a way. "It's a perfect match."

"No," the woman shook her head, her heart leaping; she could have and would have jumped for joy where it not for the confines of the SUV. "Neither of them is Tony! He's alive! He has to be!"

"What?"

xxxx

"Odabiah."

Tony growled the name with a scorn and a seething hatred that, after all these months and even after their brief meeting not too long ago, hadn't tapered off in the slightest. Kitten's entire frame dropped into a predatory stance at the name and face as she continued to pace, stalking almost. Despite the aggressive reactions, the white bearded man smiled warmly, but with a definite threat to the expression. Stane folded his arms across his chest, puffing out and preening like he always did when the man knew he had the upper hand. The man downright sneered at his captives as Tony just slowly stood in a proud defiance and glared, waiting for Obadiah to make the first move and as Kitten prowled.

"Tony, Tony, Tony," the man greeted in a mocking tone. "You just can't seem to keep yourself out of trouble these days, can you?"

"How did you get out of Central?" the inventor questioned.

Obadiah shrugged nonchalantly. "A friend helped." Kitten's hair about stood on end as the air about them crackled; Obadiah tsked her with a clicking of his teeth and a cautionary wag of his finger. "I wouldn't do that if I were you, little lady."

Tony opened his eyes to survey the room and the materials surrounding them, the fittings of the hinges on the other side of the door and the cameras, his mind putting together all the factors and crunching numbers, estimating the probabilities that lay before him. "Kitten don't."

The girl stiffened as a glow flashed in the depths of her dark pupils, but the businessman merely gave a nod in Stark's direction. "Go ahead, Tony." His fingers traced an abstract, circular pattern on the clear wall that effectively separated them. "Tell her why that's not such a good idea."

The inventor heaved a tired sigh, already more than aware of what Obadiah so obviously hinted at. "Stand down, Kitten."

"Last I checked, I don't take orders from you, fuckwit." Her eyes flickered like wildfire, darting back and forth between the two men.

Tony shook his head in annoyance. "Stop being so stubborn and just listen for once." The inventor's gaze met his former business partner's collected and even stare. "Same stuff we use for blast shielding?"

"Only the best for Tony Stark," Obadiah replied with a quick nod.

Stark rolled his eyes at the clearly agitated Kitten. "Don't do it." When the girl refused to back down, Tony explained in an even, detached voice, "It's a highly impact resistant material not unlike polycarbonate, but much, much stronger." The girl stayed her ground, and, so the man went on, never taking his sight from the overly smug visage of Obadiah Stane beyond the window. "It was designed for protective shielding for high explosives testing."

"Oh, yes. We spared no expenses for your accommodations this time, Tony. Blast plating, EMF shielding, two feet of steel and concrete, as well as a few other tricks up my sleeve." Obadiah beamed, his grin almost demonically calculating and cold. "Not some little cave in the mountains for you to just slip away from, especially not considering your more recent developments."

Tony smirked to himself in a humorless joke, wishing he could run a hand through his hair as he shook his head. "Chunky salsa."

"What?" she demanded brusquely, her glance darting between Obadiah and Tony.

The inventor sobered, drawing up the memory of several pigs reduced to tiny blobs of fat and flesh and bone shards splattered over entire walls. ''We designed rooms like this at the company for research on concussion grenades small, enclosed spaces using pig carcasses as human analogues. All that was left was chunky salsa." Tony's wrists strained against their bonds behind his back at the thought. "If you let off a burst in here, that's all that'll be left of both of us."

"And, if you decide to fire off a round out here, you'll still be quite trapped in there," Obadiah added quite succinctly, putting the icing on the cake to an extremely bad situation. "So, I would highly recommend behaving yourself this time."

At that, the tightness in Kitten's muscles released a tiny bit as she swore under her breath, "Sonovabitch."

Obadiah laughed to himself, far too amused by the entire situation. "You'll just have to forgive the company. It's a little hard to find appropriate accommodations for people like Kitten. Don't want you to pull another one of your little tricks. You're going to be spending a lot of time together, so you'll just have to get real friendly and behave like good little children."

"I don't play well with others." Kitten glared furiously. "You could at least give me back my book so I'll at least have _something _intelligent to keep me company."

"Ah, yes." Obadiah stepped out of sight for a moment; when he returned, he held a brand new copy of _American Gods_, waving it temptingly at her on the other side of the clear wall. "Neil Gaiman." He smirked, surveying the cover with its picture of lightning striking at the end of a long, lonely highway. "You know, Kitten, I recently had the opportunity to read this." She refused to be baited, maintaining her feral gaze as the businessman went on, "Very interesting." Stane paused before admitting almost warmly, "It's not a bad book. I see why you chose it."

"Give it to me," the girl demanded swiftly.

Obadiah's lips pursed in thought before giving the book another wave before her. "I'll make you a deal, Kitten. You show me some cooperation, and you can have your little book." The businessman sat the book on the floor just outside of the cell before turning on his heel. "Think it over."

xxxx

"Care to explain, Miss Potts?"

The woman wiped her cheeks roughly to scour away her tears, tears of joy as well as the few that had spilt at the thoughts of Tony's death. She laughed hysterically at the idea; Tony's vanity had been the only way she would have ever known. Shortly after his return from captivity, he came to her and stumbled over the request for her assistance in locating a specialist in cosmetic oral and maxillofacial surgery that both came with excellent credentials and reviews. Pepper had spent an entire day drumming up just the right surgeon who would chance an entirely elective procedure on someone with as unique of circumstances as Tony with his implanted arc reactor, as well as a doctor who could be trusted to not disclose any information about his patient at all.

"That's not Tony's dental records. Or, if it is, it's not up to date," Pepper reasoned in strange relief, still struggling to stifle her own happiness. "But neither of them is Tony, that's for sure."

Fury rose an eyebrow in intrigue, but his face remained stolid and expressionless as he entertained the possibility. "Explain."

Pepper pointed with a finger to the back, and bottom right of the x-rays, to the neat and perfectly intact row of healthy molars along the lower jaw, circling the first one with her finger. "Right there." She smiled to herself, still thinking about how nervous and boyish Tony had seemed at having to make such a request of her. "This one. This one shouldn't be here."

"Shouldn't?" The cocked eyebrow rose a notch.

Pepper's fingers trailed over the computer screen. "Before he left for Afghanistan, the tooth was bothering him a bit. He figured he would have it taken care of after he returned from the presentation." Pepper closed her eyes, remembering the dark day Rhodes had called with the dismal news that Tony had disappeared before her heart stilled enough for her to go on. "They didn't have any dentists or even toothbrushes there, so he tried to just rinse with saltwater until it got too bad. Tony knocked the tooth out himself."

"Never noticed."

"You wouldn't have," Pepper explained. "He had a dental implant put in. One of those screw in prosthetics. He's always concerned with his image." She shook her head in an act of exasperation, shocked at how his own vanity had actually come in handy for once. "I don't know who either of these people are, but they aren't Tony."

Fury put his hand on the driver's shoulder. "Drive."

xxxx

Obadiah left them alone for a while, and Tony killed time by strolling along the perimeter of the cell, studying their enclosure closely. Kitten had positioned herself in the far corner, leaning against the wall with her shoulders to keep from putting any weight against her secured hands. He followed the length of the wall, stepping well away from her and giving her a wide berth when he got to close to the corner, but the girl remained still, her eyes closed. The bleeding had stopped, caking her face in places with dried, crimson tears. Tony couldn't tell if she were sleeping or not, but it wasn't as if he really cared. It wasn't as though he truly wanted to spend any time chatting with the mercenary if he didn't have to.

The man moved cautiously, his eyes sweeping back and forth to take in every minute detail. The cell had never seen any explosives testing use, meaning it was highly unlikely that this was one of his own facilities. All of the Stark Industries testing labs had seen practical use, leaving the once pristine walls covered in a wide array of damage and scorch marks from the experiments. This room looked perfect and sterile, as though it had never seen any use in explosives testing. There had been some minor adjustments to the design, including a squat, brushed metal toilet in one corner and a floor drain in the middle. The simple fact left Tony with the unsettling conclusions that a.) he had no idea where they had been taken and b.) this place had been built exclusively for a purpose.

"Give it up, shit for brains. There's no way out of here."

Tony sighed in exasperation, dropping to his haunches in the exact opposite corner of the tiny cell from Kitten. "Can't just give up."

"I'm not giving up." The mercenary rolled her eyes dramatically, pushing herself hard against the wall behind her and bowing her body upwards. "I'm waiting." Kitten huffed through gritted teeth as she stretched down as far as possible, somehow managing to shimmy and tuck the chains of her restraints under her feet with one last grunt of effort. "There's a distinct difference."

Kitten sat back and let out the breath she'd been holding, drawing her hands up to her chest and waggling her fingers tauntingly at her cellmate who remained bound behind his back. Tony turned his head to the side, surprised at how agile she was, but, after a moment's consideration, the sentiment fell away. Kitten had merely been exceedingly lucky that the restraints had a long enough chain and that she had a narrow enough frame and build to manage such a trick without an extreme acts of contortion. It had only been by a narrow margin that the girl had been able to accomplish such a feat, but, judging from the width of his own shoulders and chest, as well as the shortness of the chain, Tony highly doubted he could do it himself.

"Doesn't look like too different to me."

Kitten didn't answer as she shoved fingers in between her skin and the restraints to rub where her stretching trick had left small burn marks. Tony suddenly pitied Yinsen back in the caves. At least _he'd_ been smart enough to eventually listen to sound reason the doctor spouted. Granted, it had taken falling into a pit of his own self-loathing and depression, but Tony had eventually come around, gathered his wits, and did the only thing he could do. He built a bigger stick, worked with his own two hands to fabricate his own escape. Kitten, meanwhile, seemed quite content to concern herself only with a stupid paperback book she could buy at any Barnes & Noble for ten dollars. They had far bigger problems, now.

Tony did not even know when the irrepressible urge to needle the assassin arose or even why, but he did gave into it anyway, enjoying it as he rooted around for a good, solid nerve to strike at. "Looks like giving up to me." When Kitten did not dignify him with a response, the inventor pressed harder. "What are you waiting for anyway?"

"What do you think? The second coming of Christ?" Kitten snapped back viscously as she longingly eyed the paperback edition of her seeming beloved _American Gods_ on the other side of the polymer wall. "The motherfucking calvary."

He thought about that night on the road, when she stopped the now crumpled car and when the girl had drawn his very life out of him through her hands, dawning on a new tactic. "Is blowing things up all you're useful for?"

"No."

Tony nodded. "So, if you're some kind of all powerful witch, or whatever, why don't you just figure out a way to get us out of here, kay?"

Kitten gestured to the blood on her face with a wave of her pale, bound hands. "Because I'm fucking tired, that's why." She sighed, leaning her head against the wall behind her, closing the discussion rather easily by hissing, "Now, seriously, enough with the twenty questions. My head hurts, so just leave me the fuck alone."

Tony shrugged to himself. "Fine."

xxxx

Rhodes had little to do with his free time anymore, and, as such, he had become quite adept at watching and studying people. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had merely been standing for some time, keeping close watch over their charge and occasionally moving to perform perimeter checks. Rhodes noted it as seemingly standard, and rather boring procedure. After a time, there was a small commotion, and a flurry of activity among them. The next thing Rhodes knew, he, along with the hulking crate from Tony, were being loaded into the belly of an army medevac helicopter, and, within minutes, soaring through the skies.

Rhodes had always like riding helicopters. Jets and fighters were exhilarating at high speeds, cutting through the clouds, but Rhodes knew they were cheap thrills compared to riding in a helicopter under the skilled hands of a well trained and seasoned pilot. The right pilot could make a chopper do damned near anything, and, while the speeds would never top off anywhere near the F-22 Raptor, there was nothing quite like the nimble and awkward grace of a helicopter. When he had been a far younger and far more impulsive person, Rhodes had delighted at taking top brass for a ride in any of the helicopters he could pilot, only to throw the craft in daring and downright dangerous maneuvers just to see how many ranking officers he could get to be physically ill. Rhodes still held the rather dubious honor of holding the standing record after all those years at 29 officers vomiting, with another 6 officers actually being ill in flight.

He should have been trying to enjoy himself, but the colonel couldn't. He could not even watch the landscape slip beneath the medevac as they flew. There was only the darkly painted interior of the helicopter for him to study, along with the few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and the in flight nurse who all seemed quite content to sit in silence. Rhodes let his mind drift until he dozed lightly. The colonel didn't wake until the medevac began its descent.

"Where are we?" He asked in a groggy voice.

One of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents turned to face the colonel, almost surprised that their patient was awake. "Groom Lake, Nevada."

Rhodes blinked in confusion. "That place had been closed down for years."

"To the public," the agent noted. "And to the military. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s been keeping the lights on ever since." The stranger beamed as he looked out the window to the landing pad beneath them and the base about it, still out of Rhodes's line of sight. "Welcome to Area 51, Colonel Rhodes."

xxxx

When Obadiah returned with an entire squad of reinforcements, Tony had thought he'd be ready. He could no longer count of Kitten, who had gone back to sitting in her corner and snubbing him after the revelation he'd imparted to her, to help. She seemed dead set on ignoring her unwilling roommate. There wasn't any plan, nor any intelligent design to his actions. Upon seeing them coming for him armed with assault rifles and dressed in full tactical gear, a crude drive formed within Tony, a fear and an innate need to try. He paced back and forth as their steps drew closer, echoing in the hall in neat formation, feeling the adrenaline begin to course anew through him with each deafening pound of his heart beat.

Kitten teased him in a soft whisper, a hushed breath meant only for his ears in a somber, almost demonic mockery of Yinsen's advice in the cave. "Whatever you're about to try, I wouldn't do it if I were you."

Tony gave his head a toss. He had grown quite tired of the mercenary and her unusual ways, her secrecy and her scorn of him. What right did she have to give him, of all people, advice on escaping the un-escapable? Tony was, after all, the man who fabricated his own liberation in the original jangling automaton, and in less than 90 days with scrap metal and discarded munitions parts.

The man didn't look to the mercenary as he announced in a flat tone, "You can stay if you want, but I'm getting the hell out of here, one way or another."

When the black clad contingent arranged themselves in formation on the other side of the cell wall, Kitten shrugged and slowly got to her feet, cracking her neck out and lamenting in a tired voice, "Suit yourself, shithead."

Obadiah moved to the front and folded his arms across his chest. "You going to come nicely, Tony, like a decent, civilized person? Or are we going to need to employ force?"

Tony did not give him any answer, just stood in waiting, with Kitten lingering just behind him. He watched intently as Obadiah slid an electronic passkey through someone at the side of the door and punched what had to be a key code granted the beeping noises. Tony's mind reached out and keenly listened to the numbers, memorizing their acoustic and electronic signature, closing his eyes to solidify the memory in the back of his brain. After that, the inventor's interest piqued to study the motions as Obadiah pulled a physical key from his pocket, a barrel key not unlike the one that secured the servant's passage at the mansion, and unlocked an unseen bolt in the wall that secured the door. The inventor allowed precise impressions of all this to wash over him and preserved each and every minute detail to the locking mechanisms that the man could garner from his perspective, knowing that the information may come in handy later.

As Obadiah stepped back and away from the cell door, Tony turned his attention to the armed guard which had escorted the businessman. There were six of them. They wore simple black overalls, most emblazoned with the SI logo in white, but a few with the Spartan profile logo of Ares Industries. The sight of his own corporate insignia upon these men made Tony uneasy. The material seemed a bit strange in the weave, and Tony guess it to be flame-resistant Nomex granted Kitten's uniquely explosive ability. Each wore body armor vests, loaded with ammunition and various other tactical gear, including Mag Lights and flexicuffs that amounted to nothing more than glorified zip ties. His eyes roved over the gear, searching for anything useful that might be within reach of his bound hands, but finding not a thing that hadn't been securely fastened. Each of the guards bore both an Ares Crusader Machine Pistol and Predator II, many of them drawn and at the ready. Obadiah certainly hadn't spared any expense this time in keeping Tony.

Tony let his shoulders sag as the men approached and took him by the elbows to lead him from the cell to stand before Obadiah. His ears caught the sound of Kitten shifting her weight on the balls of her feet, still clueless as to whether or not she had decided to get his back this time. The man didn't have a choice but to hope that maybe the mercenary did.

He stepped right up into Obadiah's face and put on a coy smirk. "I can be a gentleman when the devil drives. You know that, Obi."

"But of course," the businessman replied with a cool grin.

Obadiah had not been expecting what happened next. In fact, nobody had. Tony reared back and slammed his head forward into Obadiah's. The sudden motion loosened the hands of the guards to either side of him, and the blow sent Obadiah staggering back. Pain flared in Tony's head, but it was now or never. He bolted, running and practically diving through a team of exceptionally surprised guards. He thought he heard Kitten running behind him amid all the confusion. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her lunging for through the door and diving as hands reached for her. Tony scrambled, his strides uneven and awkward with his arms bound behind his back, his heart leaping at the sudden freedom and the sight of a door at the end of the hall and a t-junction.

The one thing Tony had not been expecting was a rifle butt to crash into his temple as he reached the door. The strike sent sparks dancing over Tony's vision, and he stumbled to the ground, unable to keep his balance with his hands restrained behind him. In a grim retrospect, Tony knew he should have realized there was something wrong with the entire situation when Obadiah hardly flinched at his seeming escape.

Tony glanced up with bleary eyes. The door was just a foot away from him. The inventor drew his legs up to stand and hurry on, but, as a second team of heavily armed guards approached judging from the swarm of heavily booted feet. It had been a valiant but foolish effort, Tony knew, even as a second blow came down upon him, but he had to try it, if only to collect information to serve a later escape attempt, as many attempts as it took.

The world fell away once more.

xxxx

Pepper Potts stared out the heavily tinted windows curiously as the Denali drew up to the base. It had started, quite simply, with a dirt road leading into the middle of nowhere in the deserts of Nevada. Blue mountains rose in the far distance. The land spread about them flatly, covered in low scrub brush, jagged rocks, and joshua trees in a harsh, unforgiving, and almost barren landscape. Her only initial clue that they were anywhere near Groom Lake was the seemingly innocuous orange pole and the clump of white and red signs sticking up amid a bed of dried, wavering grass. The main sign read, in unapologetically forward letters:

NELLIS BOMBING AND GUNNERY RANGE

RESTRICTED AREA

NO TRESPASSING

BEYOND THIS

POINT

PHOTOGRAPHY IS

PROHIBITED

There was a smaller warning on the sign, to the side of that, with much more type, but the Denali sped past so quickly that Pepper only caught the word "WARNING" in bold, red print. Had she been given the time to look closer, she would have noticed the fine print. "US Air Force Installation: It is unlawful to enter this area without permission of Installation Commander. While on this installation, all personnel and the property under their control are subject to search."

Even if she had the time, Pepper doubted she would have read the sign. She was too distracted by the beautifully alien terrain about them and the small, sad expression of welcome upon Fury's face as he, too, stared out upon the strange place in the desert that they had come to. Fury didn't seem to have noticed the warnings either. His face bore a serene look, the expression of a traveller returning home after many years abroad stirring up old memories. He stared out of the Denali with a tiny smile upon his face, distant and thoughtful. Pepper found herself wondering what stray thoughts and recollections the almost imperceptible smile betrayed.

"Miss Potts?"

Fury's voice startled Pepper from her reverie, and the woman instantly flushed. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent looked back at her intently, his head angled slightly to one side. She had been caught staring, like a school girl. The woman turned away, but she still felt his gaze upon her, studious and curious, burning at her. The woman turned her attention back to the desert.

Fury chortled deeply in a low tone at her glaring shame as well as what seemed his own, mild embarrassment. "Forgive me, Miss Potts. It has been a long time since I've been..." Fury paused, as though considering the right word. "Home."

And it was true. When the organization started, there had been little interest and even less funding, and it had been tucked away in the last military base imaginable. Work and the seclusion of Groom Lake stifled any sort of a social life, and Fury found it to be a home between missions, his only home, really. While Nick Fury operated as one of the government's many well-trained deniable assets through S.H.I.E.L.D., he had grown quite accustomed to life at Groom Lake. It was only in the last decade that S.H.I.E.L.D. had exploded onto the scene, becoming the pinnacle of Homeland Security and emerging from the veil of international espionage, that the government took a greater interest in the project and shifted the headquarters to Central to promote a public existence of the agency. It had only been natural for Fury to move to Manhattan, but Groom Lake had been his home for many years.

The base consisted of a tiny sliver of land wedged between the Nellis Air Force Range and the Nevada Test Site on the dry bed of Groom Lake, well known to the public as Area 51. The base had earned the unusual moniker that would become infamous after the supposed "Roswell alien crash" from old maps of the NTS that designated the small square as Area 51, the name that would become famous among conspiracy theorists. Fury still found a good measure of humor to that. The base spent several years as an aircraft proving grounds for the prototypes of the SR-71 Blackbird, and the Roswell crash had honestly been the result of a crashed prototype, no matter what conspiracy theorists thought. After the base closed from standard operations and testing, S.H.I.E.L.D. moved in and converted the old bunkers and fall out shelters to suit their unique needs. He only found it amusing to ponder what they would think if they knew the truth about the base and its sordid but credible history.

A pair of silver Ford F250s appeared from nowhere, flanking the Denali in front and back, kicking up a cloudy wake of dust; Pepper jumped and stiffened. "Are they...?"

"Relax, Miss Potts. They're with us."

And Fury left it at that as the Denali with its new escort continued down the dusty road until it came to a checkpoint of sorts. Pepper raised an eyebrow only slightly at the white, steel plated building and the fencing that ran up to it. There was a small guard shack at the side of the road, and an obligatory black and white boom barrier gate blocking their path. As the lead pick-up approached, a guard in the shed reached for something unseen, and the boom gate lifted, allowing them to pass. They continued on into the desert to a rather unobtrusive set of military bunkers and small hangars painted in bland cream. The place looked abandoned and devoid of all military activity.

Pepper glanced to Fury. "You said you were taking us to the only place you knew we would be safe?"

Fury shot Pepper a knowing glance. "This is." As the Denali drew up before what appeared to be the main hangar, a helicopter appeared in the distance, approaching as swiftly as possible; the agent turned his eyes to the sky and, then, to his watch. "Right on schedule."

**XXXX**


	21. Lan Party

**DUMPSHOCK - LAN PARTY**

"Wakey wakey..."

When conscious returned to Tony, it came with blinding, white light. The cave and the camera. Tony jumped, rocketing to full alertness, his hands shooting up to defend himself but coming up short as the restraints that bound him snapped taut. He looked down to his hands, as his mind cleared. He wasn't on his knees at Raza's mercy, but, instead, someone had sat him upon a cold, steel chair. Heavy, leather restraints still bound his throbbing wrists, but they were now chained quite securely to an eyebolt in the chair between his legs. As his gaze drifted further downwards, he noticed the matching restraints upon his ankles shackling him to the floor.

"Welcome back to the world of the living."

Tony jerked in his chair at the sound of the voice, but he forced himself to calm down and be still. Tony licked his chapped lips and swallowed, his throat dry and parched. Yet the simple act had been enough to help slow his respiration and racing pulse as the inventor glanced about to survey his surroundings.

He sat in a sterile seeming room before a stainless steel table. Anonymous people in white scrubs and masks moved about him, fiddling with machines and devices Tony cared not to think too much about. Even as he thought of them, he saw minor blips and fluctuations on what appeared to be monitors for him. Tony ignored that and returned his attention to the eerie scene before him. Atop the plain table, strangely enough, rested a black and white, marble chess set, without any pieces standing at their customary attention. There sat an open laptop on the table with a USB cable running to the base of the board, oddly enough. And, beyond that, sat the person who had greeted him.

The inventor sighed heavily but refused to address Jonas, nor even really acknowledge the boy's presence if he had to. The boy sat in plain street clothes, just jeans and a black shirt, his hair slicked back into a neat ponytail. The boy smiled, grinning from ear to ear like a cheshire cat. Behind him, along the periphery of the room, stood Obadiah Stane, arms folded across his chest as he watched in intrigue.

"Oh, not feeling up to chatting?" Jonas teased. He waved at hand at the seemingly nonexistent chess set before them. "I thought you would be bored by now and would enjoy a nice game of chess."

The friendly tone to Jonas's voice came as a mockery to the inventor, but Tony had to admit that boredom was a sworn enemy of his. He looked to the boy who still seemed utterly pleased with himself as the pair looked over the empty chessboard. Unlike him, Jonas wasn't bound or restrained. Instead, the boy sat there of his own free will, just as willing as he had gone into Tony's home that night.

Tony smirked slightly, his gaze shifting between the clearly amused Jonas and the expressionless Obadiah. "Hate to break it to you, but you kind of need pieces to play." The inventor sniffed. "We at least had backgammon pieces before." He still didn't dare utter the place he had been held. "How do you expect us to play? Imagination alone?"

"There are pieces," Jonas replied cryptically. "You've just got to open your eyes to see them."

The inventor focused on the chessboard and shook his head in surrender. "Nothing."

"Just find the node," the boy pressed.

Tony licked his lips again, tasting salt upon them strangely, but, still, no matter how hard he looked at the chessboard, all he saw was a sea of white and black squares spreading before them. He sighed in exasperation, his head aching from both blows of the rifle butt and from the exertion. A migraine built in him. Tony was about to give up when he noticed a small glimmer on the board, a mildly hazy shimmer of green resting a few inches over the center. Jonas preened when he saw the confusion in Tony's eyes.

"Aw, c'mon, Stark. You're taking too long." Jonas said haughtily and made a swishing motion of his finger. "Tick tock." When Tony still seemed unable to make sense of the haze, Jonas's voice raised slightly in irritation. "You're giving us a bad name."

The boy looked to Obadiah over his shoulder. Stane nodded to one of the waiting white coats and gave a nod of his head. Tony focused so hard on the board and the growing green haze at the center that he almost didn't notice the motion until the last moment. As the white coat drew near enough for the sound to startle Tony. Instinctively, Tony bucked in the chair, jolting to his left and away from the reaching, gloved hands that bore an alcohol swab and a syringe loaded with who knew what. The chains, however, refused to give, and Tony only succeeding in moving perhaps a few inches to his side, not far enough.

"What are you doing?" Tony shouted in a primal fear, even as the white coat scrubbed a small spot at the top of his arm. He only screamed louder when the syringe pierced his flesh, "No!"

An unsettling sensation washed over Tony's veins as the contents of the syringe pumped in him, dispersed across his entire body by a heart pumping in overdrive. It both froze and burnt at the same time, cutting through him like the metallic barbs nestled in his chest and held in place by his arc reactor. It felt like both liquid nitrogen and lava scorching through him with an electric charge. His muscles clenched involuntarily for a moment before releasing, leaving his nerve endings raw and angry, singing bittersweet agony. A daze and fog settled over him, as Tony's vision blurred momentarily. The man blinked furiously to clear his eyes as a noise echoed in his ears, distant and watery. It took Tony a moment to realize the booming noise in his ears was his own screams.

A warm hand clamped down on his shoulder, and Tony drew in a hitched breath, quieting enough to hear Obadiah's voice cut through to the quick in a stern, even tone. "Relax."

Yet, the word had entirely the opposite effect as the memory of Obadiah ripping Tony's arc reactor from his chest while he sat, paralyzed in his own home fired across all of the inventor's synapses. His heart thumped in his chest, beating out his ear drums. Tony gave another jerk to the side, pulling out from under the elder man's hold.

"Don't touch me." The words came out as a cold hiss, venomous and almost deadly in their own right. As if by his wish alone, Obadiah stepped back, giving Tony long enough to regroup and compile his limited medical knowledge to contemplate the reaction to the drug, before even Tony admitted defeat and barked. "What did you give me?"

Obadiah smiled warmly and fatherly, even under Tony's vehement glare. "Something to help you focus."

Tony spat. He'd never in his entire life understood why women always seemed to feel the need to hock up sputum at the people who either utterly repulsed or thoroughly enraged them. When Tony inquired curiously about it after one of his many one night stands caught back up with him at a charity event and spat right in his face in front of a swarm of paparazzi, Pepper assured Tony the action wasn't a common one among women and this it was certainly she was unlikely to indulge in. Now, though, he understood. So bound and held, it was the only weapon he had to bear against either Obadiah or Jonas, and, so, Tony used it. He was instantly rewarded by a frown from the older businessman as Obadiah took a silk, monogramed handkerchief to wipe the saliva away. It hadn't done any physical or emotional damage to his once friend, but it had given Tony some small measure of delight that they could not, would not tame him like some lab rat.

"Why are you doing this, Obadiah?" Tony demanded in his rage.

Obadiah tucked the handkerchief back in his pocket, and that smug, self-satisfied smile reappeared on his face. "Progress, Tony. Always progress."

"No. Why are you doing this to me?" the inventor heard a tiny quiver in his own voice as his tone raised a note at the end, suggesting the feeling of hurt and betrayal lived on after that Obadiah had done.

"These are trying days, Tony. For as many guns, explosives, rockets, tanks, and jets we invent, there will always be something more deadly out there just waiting around the corner." Obadiah strolled about the table to resume his place behind Jonas at the back of the room. "Power is no longer in the hands of those who are simply willing to point a gun at someone else. Power, these days, falls to only those who are willing to get their hands dirty."

Tony hardly noticed the green above the board growing more prominent between himself and Obadiah. "But why me?"

The older man took in a deep breath and held it before answering. "People like you and Kitten are unique, rare and quite valuable commodities to be had." Obadiah rubbed his white beard even as he echoed Taiga Mitsuhama's own commentary on the mercenary. "Did you ever wonder where some of your ideas came from?" Tony furrowed his eyebrows, but Stane pressed. "Or how your math was always right?"

Tony shook his head, summoning as much of his old sarcasm and trademarked wit as he could dredge up granted the situation despite everything screaming in his mind not to think about it, not to suspect. "Aw, you're just jealous of my superior intellect, old man. That's what this is all about, isn't it?"

"Perhaps," Obadiah conceded with a shrug.

The inventor gave another shake of his head, all the humor draining from him and leaving the man cold. "No. It's not. And you know it." Tony met Obadiah's gaze accusingly. "This is about the bottom line, isn't it?"

"It's always about the bottom line in our line of work, Tony, no matter what anyway says and no matter how much they donate to charity."

A migraine spiked in Tony's mind. "So, why us?"

"Kitten is here because she's dangerous. She's a walking, talking weapon. No question about it." Obadiah smirked, nudging at some imaginary fluff at the floor with the tip of his shoe. "You're a special person, Tony. I should have seen it sooner, far sooner, but I was just too blinded by my own goals to see it." Stane chuckled slightly, an unnerving sound. "I suppose you just never wanted to see it in yourself until you absolutely needed it."

Tony's heart twisted in his chest. He'd been suspecting it for some time now, ever since he had initially started seeing the lines of code and the nodes about him in the world. Granted, it only occurred when he truly, desperately needed help, but it happened nevertheless. The logical, rational scientist in him rejected the mere notion in less than a millisecond, citing it as both fanciful and childish. Hearing it from Stane crystallized the only conclusion he could come to, no matter how impossible it truly was to accept. Yet, now that he knew to look, all the facts lay bare before him. He could fabricate, design, and code like no one else on the planet. He had crafted much of Jarvis without any conscious recollection. He was affecting information about him in the wireless world, but without ever realizing it, doing it out of instinct. Tony reached out and embraced the knowledge with everything he had, knowing it might very well be his only way out of this place.

"I'm a technomancer."

It was more of a sigh of defeat than an admission, but the words unlocked something in his mind, some part of him that had been held back by his own denial. Tony hung his head in a shame that he could not explain for a moment before swallowing and looking up again. Jonas eyed their captive intently as the green glow solidified into a symbol over them. The two half-circles butted back to back of an open node slowly revolved over the barren chess board enticingly. Tony furrowed his eyebrows at the symbol that so called and beckoned to him. The inventor felt the stream of code that encapsulated the node singing to him, inviting him to converse freely with it.

The boy turned to look over his shoulder, glancing to Obadiah and announcing coyly, "And we have network presence."

Obadiah nodded. "Go ahead."

"Wait." The captive man looked down at his own fetters, tugging slightly at them and grimacing at the sight of his own wrists, raw and red from friction. "You told me that you hired them to kill me in Afghanistan because I wouldn't approve of your... methods." Tony paused, feeling the burning of both his wrists and the unidentified serum still flowing in his blood as well as a strange dizziness, gauging the reaction on Stane's face. "What are you going to do?"

"Well, my friend here is going to play a nice game of chess with you," Obadiah replied steadily, obviously choosing not to tip his hand.

"And you?" Tony asked quickly.

"Me? I'm going to watch."

The inventor's brow furrowed as terrible thoughts flooded his mind. He thought of Kitten, of her verbal attack in the Ale & Wench. She had demanded to know how he could do _it_, calling him a murderer. The girl hated him with a passion for some crime Tony wasn't even certain he'd actually committed, but it had been enough to drive the normal, sane, and happy Amatista Labropoulos into the raging, deadly mercenary known only as Kitten. The memory of Dr. Ivy Heather Maddox surfaced in his mind, a once brilliant woman broken and turned utterly insane by something linked to all of this around him. He thought of General Thaddeus Ross and the man's insatiable urge to corral the rogue scientist Bruce Banner for use as a pet weapon. His mind raced with the possibilities of what had happened to them, of what could and would happen to him granted enough time in that place.

Tony grit his teeth, feeling defiance rise within him, and he challenged, "Why should I?"

Obadiah dipped his head slightly. "It will give us an idea of where you stand, and I figured you would enjoy something to keep your mind occupied." The businessman made an waving gesture of his hand. "Tell you what, Tony. You play a nice game of chess with my friend here, and I'll bring you a flask of scotch."

"And Kitten?" Tony ignored the offer and focused on the dark possibilities that lay before him. "What are you going to do to her?"

"Same thing we're going to do to you. Study her, of course."

"So, are you ready, or are you going to keep me waiting longer?" Tony glanced to Jonas curiously, mildly frightened by the prospect as the boy continued to meet his gaze with a wolfish leer; as he did, the boy made a small wave of his hand to the board. "White or black?"

"Black."

Tony made the impulsive decision out of instinct. He'd played chess a few times in college against the team, but it had never been enough to hold his attention. Now, it seemed a deadly game over life and death when faced with Obadiah Stane and Jonas on the other side of the board. White moved first in chess. By playing as black and going second, it gave the inventor an extra move or two to study Jonas's moves and figure out the boy's strategy. The head of the chess team had taught Tony well to recall Emanuel Lasker's words of wisdom. _"When you see a good move wait - look for a better one."_

Jonas bowed his head slightly, and a set of white chest pieces materialized on the board on his side. Each piece was comprised of outlines taking the shape of characters from a twisted Alice in Wonderland. Mad Hatters, bunnies with watches, and even card soldiers for pawns, many waiting and tapping their feet impatiently. The lolita figure that had so haunted Tony before took her rank as Queen at the side of a miniature Jonas as King. The lolita planted an overly dramatic kiss upon her King's cheek before turning and blowing a kiss to the real Jonas behind the board.

"Well?" Jonas raised an eyebrow.

Tony stared out curiously. "Well what?"

"Are you going to join me in this or resign now?" the boy responded, resting his elbows on the table and bridging his fingers together.

The inventor turned his attention to the board, to his empty and undefended side. "I don't..."

"Just concentrate."

The inventor closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. His mind felt slightly glazed over either from dehydration or whatever drug they'd injected into him. Tony couldn't tell quite at the moment, but it left him pliant. His willingness to just listen and allow all this to go on around him sickened Tony. The migraine that had threatened before continue to build as he tried to focus, to make his mind work with the node before him as it had done so instinctively before in the previous situations.

"Saying concentrate doesn't help," Tony bickered, pulling against his restraints.

Jonas sighed. "Everything you've done up until this point has been instinct and need, hasn't it?"

Tony suddenly felt like Kitten in the cell. All avoidance and distance, a cold sheet of ice about him. He had absolutely no desire to answer all these questions, and maybe even less desire to be a technomancer, to engage in whatever it was that they did. It had only brought him nothing but trouble.

"I know its true," Jonas answered for Tony with an air of satisfaction. "You can't hide it from me." Tony turned away, staring with increasingly blurry eyes, but Jonas went on. "I've been there, and done that. I know what it's like." The boy drew in a breath, but Tony refused to look in his direction. "But you're just learning. You'll figure it out." The inventor huffed, but, when he continued to refuse to acknowledge the boy's baiting, Jonas asked in an almost prophetic tone, "Kitten did it, didn't she?"

Now, Tony's head bobbed back up, meeting Jonas's steady and knowing gaze, but with a deadly glare in return. There was a tense moment as both of them sat, sizing one another up. Confusion flickered in the back of Tony's mind, but he stifled it.

"She's a special girl when she does her thing." Jonas grinned devilishly, leaning over the table, but, still Tony bit his tongue. "She raised hell on you, didn't she?" Tony's silence spoke more than words, and Jonas just laughed, leaning back in his chair, bridging his hands behind his head. "And you reacted the only way you could, amiright?"

Tony felt his migraine building; he closed his eyes to block it out as he tried to focus on the chessboard and the node before them. "I thought we were here to play chess."

"We would be playing right now if you would just join in the game," Jonas responded quickly.

The inventor honed all of his concentration upon the chessboard and the node, uncertain of what exactly to do. It was right there in front of him. It should have been so easy to reach out and touch it. Like traffic lights and Jarvis. He stared at the revolving open node symbol for some time as Tony tried to find the right codes amid the strings that comprised the two half-circles. There! He reached out and snatched the code, clawing at it, and was instantly rewarded with a stabbing pain in the back of his mind. Whatever part of him had stretched for the code recoiled back into him.

"Mmm... network security," Jonas quipped with a click of his teeth. "Work around it."

Tony shook his head glumly and tried once more, slipping in through whatever had caught him before and into the node. His head throbbed as Tony coughed up some rudimentary code himself and drew up his own little army. The pieces were crude and angular, no where near as sophisticated as Jonas's. Tony smirked when he looked down and noted a scant outline of the king was his red and gold Mark III suit flanked by robots and phoenix birds, as strange little things that looked vaguely like Kitten stood in the spots for his Bishops. But the one that surprised Tony, was the Queen, which partially resembled Pepper Potts. Jonas nodded slowly to Obadiah and the various white coats in approval, eliciting a flurry of notations from them.

Jonas looked to the board and moved a pawn forward without touching it. Tony's move now. He focused on one of the pawns, reaching for the line of code and shifting it forward. It took a moment to fine tune his senses to the sensation, but it worked, eventually. The two sat in silence, moving about one another, playing their game, until Jonas drew ready to take the first piece. It was just a pawn, but Tony had lured the boy into taking it, a sacrifice to take one of Jonas's Bishops.

And it had only been a ruse, really. The inventor had been playing their game while scouring the underlying code for something, anything, any ways to communicate with the outside world. He hadn't been quite certain it would work, but it was a gamble he had to try. The node was like any access point to the internet. All he need do was reach out through it and find the right servers beyond it, maybe even send an S.O.S. to the right people. Yet, as Jonas took the pawn and some little dangling bit of binary hung as an escape before the inventor, it came with a crippling spike of white hot pain in the back of Tony's mind. He doubled over in his chair, gritting his teeth to keep from screaming out, but it hurt so very much. The node instantly closed up before him, hurling Tony back to the real world and the room and sending agony screaming through him.

Jonas grinned from ear to ear. "Should have stuck to the game. We could have played nicely."

Two burly guards came and unlocked the inventor from his restraints and hauled him to his feet, but there was little energy left to him after being tossed from the node. He didn't have anything left to fight with after that. They dragged him back to the cell and threw him in. The man would have loved to have struggled, to fight and run, but his body and mind were too far gone from whatever had just happened. Tony landed in a heap, lying there for a moment before crawling to the wall and curling up in a ball. His nerves still flared and fired from whatever it was, burning uncontrollably.

Finally, when Tony looked up, he saw her. Kitten. She saw curled up in a corner, her restrained hands holding the paperback copy of _American Gods_ lovingly. He understood now. The noise of her moving behind him, bolting and diving, had only been the mercenary leaping for her book before recoiling into the cell. She licked her finger and turned a page, her eyes flicking easily over the text.

Kitten did not even lift an eye from her book. "Told you it wouldn't work."

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: I am soooo awful at chess and soooo jealous of people who can actual play. But, I imagine that someone like Tony Stark would be good at it. I'm much better at Go, which isn't saying a lot because I'm fairly terrible at that, too. shame

And, oh, Sonnegott, it's because I sooo rarely find people outside of my game crew who know anything about Shadowrun, let alone play. Therefore, the chunky salsa joke is for you, and maybe the two or three other people out there on who've read about the effects in Shadowrun of grenades in small, enclosed spaces.

Oh, and sorry for the delay. There's something really important that needs to happen in a very precise way in the next couple of chapters, to make it work without doing something incredible stupid to the characters and the plot. I've just been streamlining it and polishing.


	22. Antiwire

**DUMPSHOCK - ANTIWIRE**

"You knew."

Tony didn't have the energy to sit up as he would have wanted to so his scathing accusation could have some sort of spine to them. Instead, he curled up on the floor, wondering mildly in the back of his mind how much he must have looked like a battered dog. Yet, while he didn't have the strength to sit up, he did find it in him to dart her a scornful glare, rich in loathing and hatred.

Kitten shrugged, hardly looking up from her book as she turned another page. "Yup."

"You didn't-"

The girl kept her eyes locked upon her book and held up a finger, halting his argument curtly. "Before you even say it, shit for brains, I warned you, and you conveniently chose to ignore my warning." Her gaze swept from the left page to the right. "What did you think was going to happen? That they were just going to let you walk right on out the front door?" She gave a small, half-hearted chuckle at his expense. "For someone who's supposed to be _so _fucking smart, you are seriously lacking in the common sense department."

Tony closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the refreshingly cool chill of tile against his throbbing temple, licking his dry lips before addressing the assassin again, feeling the irrepressible urge to verbally strike back at her. "You still waiting for the calvary?"

Kitten turned another page. "Yup."

"They're not coming," he said flatly.

"They'll come," the girl replied quickly, not bothering to even look at him. Tony could have laughed and _did _laugh at the foolish little brat before him; Kitten furrowed her brow but remained burrowed in her book. "What's so funny?"

"Don't you get it? Calvary's not coming. Jonas has been with Obadiah the whole damn time," the inventor announced quickly, still chortling at her arrogance and stupidity. "Jonas sold you out."

Kitten shot him a dirty look and a sarcastic roll of her eyes before returning her book and mumbling darkly, "Now, whoever said I was waiting for Jonas?"

Tony sighed once more as the conversation drew to an awkward close with that. The inventor stayed where he was on the floor for some time, watching Kitten as she continued to read from her paperback copy of _American Gods_, until he felt strong enough once more to move; only then did Tony dare move, feeling his muscles aching as he carefully drew back into a corner to think. He stared at her for some time, contemplating escape once more, pondering his options. There was the door at the far enough of the hall that led to who knew where, and there was always the opposite direction down the corridor, which, again, let to a giant question mark. He'd obviously gotten too close to something in the chess node, perhaps a way out mentally, a chance to contact someone else, but, until he understood fully what had happened to himself in there, Tony couldn't take that chance. Grudgingly, Tony had to admit, once more, that his chances for escape lay in Kitten and any knowledge she might have of the place, information the girl seemed more than reluctant to share with him.

After her callous and cold-hearted comments, when they came for Kitten not too long after, Tony wasn't entirely certain he cared, and that fact alone frightened the man.

xxxx

Upon their arrival at the infamous Area 51, Fury saw to it that both Pepper Potts and James Rhodes were sequestered away deep below the desert's surface in the surprisingly expansive facilities. They had descended in a central elevator, and, once at what felt like the lowest levels of the facility, to where a wide Pepper followed the agent on foot beside Rhodes's gurney, glancing this way and that, doggedly trying to keep her bearings as they went through a series of twists and turns through the halls. However, within a matter of moments, the woman found herself confused and completely and irrevocably lost until they reached their final destination- for now.

Fury had the two settled into a spartan and utterly bland, yet comfortable seeming abode. It was a plain space with two bedrooms and bathrooms splitting off of a central living room, rather like a roommate style floor plan. Fury assisted briefly in getting Rhodes into bed in one of the rooms and demonstrating the voice operated artificial butler obviously with programming borrowed from Jarvis but lacking the subtle personality and vocal inflections Tony had been so careful to include.

The personal assistant in Potts immediately kicked into overdrive as soon as Fury left them alone. The woman instantly checked her phone and observed the stark void of cellular signal on her Blackberry. Pepper then scanned the entire apartment for a computer or another other form of communication with the outside world, discovering that they had been completely cut off, including from even cable tv! The woman openly dismayed at the thought of all the paperwork that undoubtedly built up in her absence. The professional in her wanted nothing more than to reorganize Stark's busy schedule to free up some time, as though his disappearance was nothing more than a routine event in his life.

As soon as Pepper realized what she was doing and how clinically she treated her own employer's and friend's situation, the woman collapsed in on her self. She curled up on the leather couch and drew her knees up to her chin. Yet, no matter how much she wanted to, the woman couldn't bring herself to cry. Not yet. Not until she knew Tony was dead and gone. Pepper knew from Afghanistan not to cry, to just wait patiently and, eventually, Tony would just saunter in, perhaps with some young, buxom thing clinging to each arm and a cocky glint in his eyes. That did not stop Pepper from wanting to cry though, to just let loose all the tears that threatened to vent in one great outburst.

It took twelve hours before anyone deigned to see either Colonel Rhodes or Potts, and, when they did, it was merely to issue a cursory report of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intended actions. The man spoke quickly, with a nervous stutter, as though hiding something. Pepper sat at Rhodes's side the entire time, clasping his limp hand in hers and squeezing it periodically despite knowing it was unlikely that the colonel could feel it.

They both just listening and processed the scant information presented to them before the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents left them alone. It seemed that, upon further inspection of the oral surgery reports, as well as the sudden acquisition of a hard copy of Tony's pre and post operative x-rays detailing the dental implant had confirmed Pepper's suspicion. The bones had been too charred in the fire to get an easy sample for DNA analysis, so the identity of the male remains had yet to be determined, along with the unknown female. Both Pepper and Rhodes highly doubted it was Kitten's corpse. Thus far, they didn't know where Tony had gone or who had gone through such extensive lengths to conceal his whereabouts. When Pepper pressed with additional questions, they were quickly dodged, and the conversation ended shortly thereafter.

After they left, Pepper sighed, running her long fingers through her strawberry locks. "They're not telling us something."

"Nope," Rhodes replied rather matter-of-factly.

Pepper rose and paced, rubbing her arms. "They're scared."

"I hate to break it to you, Pepper, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out," the man said in a tired drawl, letting his eyelids droop. "They're just not admitting what's got their knickers in a knot."

"I wish Tony were here. He'd go kick ass and take names until he got what he wanted," Pepper mused idly. Rhodes cocked an eyebrow and smiled lazily, mimicking one of Stark's own grins, and the woman frowned. "What? What's that face for?"

Rhodes smirked wider. "He left us a bigger stick."

Pepper felt a mad grin form on her own face. "You still have those instructions?"

"No," the colonel admitted before flashing a mischievous wink. "But that's what I've got you for, right?"

xxxx

After a longer time, they brought Kitten back, dragging her limp body down the hall. Her head hung bowed, her hair draping over her shoulders and hiding her face, but Tony knew it would be bloodied. Subconsciously, the man pressed back, into his corner, even as the armed guards unlocked the door and unceremoniously dumped the girl onto the cell floor. She groaned slightly, stirring and moving slowly from her spot before slumping back into a heap, face down upon the cold tile. The guards ignored her and set two plastic bowls down just beyond her feet, with plastic silverware and closed the door, but Kitten went still once more.

As much as the inventor would have loved to ignore Kitten, to just leave her to whatever unconsciousness and injury she'd been dealt, Tony couldn't bring himself to. Whatever Kitten was, it heralded his ticket out of there. She was a means for his escape with her untapped potential, a tool by any other name or form, and, like any other tool, Kitten could not be left in such dismal condition to rust and crack.

Tony shook his head, loosing himself of those terrible musing in a deep shame at the thought of using another person like that. _"I sound as bad as Obadiah."_

"Kitten?"

He approached her slowly, placing a hand on her shoulder. She felt so very tiny and fragile under him, not unlike a china doll. The impression wasn't helped any by the marble white pallor to her skin and the sheen of sweat across her features. It gave her an unnatural, faux look, as though Kitten had been carved of marble and left in the morning dew. Her breaths were shallow and much too far between for his comfort, barely noticeable even under her hugging tank shirt. His fingertips graced her neck for a pulse and found it faint and thready, but slowly steadying. Tony tilted her head back, cringing at the blood caked upon the girl's waxen visage. Her hands were still bound at the wrists by heavy restraints, but Tony doubted very much that the girl would be able to fight even without them considering her battered appearance.

The lights snapped off around them, plunging the unlikely pair into a crushing, inky black. The shadows swallowed them whole in a single second, like a great beast rearing up to take them. Only a bit of stray light from down the hall clawed its way through the void, barely enough to see right in front of his face. Tony darted quick glances to the left and to the right until his sight slowly adjusted to the near total darkness. It took a long time, but, when the inventor focused, he could just barely make out basic shapes in the dark expanse about him.

When Tony's stomach protested with a loud growl, he started to attempt to calculate how long they had been down there. The inventor shrunk back and away from Kitten, relinquishing her to the dark and feeling out with his hands. His left hand pawed at the air until it found purchase upon one of the walls, while his fingers skittered across the floor to find the two bowls. Hesitantly, the man tried a tiny bit of what felt like a cool, congealed goo. The god-awful taste killed his hunger instantly, and Tony set them aside. He abandoned the meager attempt at food and slowly moved along the wall until the man located what he considering "his" territory of the cell and curled up on his side.

Tony had always cautioned both Pepper and Rhodes that having a an unoccupied mind with him could be dangerous, and it was, otherwise anything was possible with him. It made him antsy and agitated beyond belief, restless in a way he could not easily categorize. Until Tony found something to occupy his mind once more, he snapped and teased with a callous lack of concern for the people around him.Boredom had always been a dire enemy to Tony Stark, one to be staved off with anything and everything possible. Alcohol. Women. Inventions. Fast cars. Video games. Parties. Everything about Tony in the world served as potential fodder in the fight against the tedium that so often menaced to claim Tony. Without any of the normal distractions, Tony felt his mind wandering back to the curious cases of Dr. Ivy Heather Maddox and Amatista Labropoulos, to their disappearances. Anything to keep from suffering the doldrums further, and anything to keep his thoughts from straying back to the speculations of what Obadiah Stane had in mind for them.

After what felt like hours of lying there restlessly, a faint sound caught Tony's ears. It came from the other side of the cell. It started as but a tiny gasp, slowly escalating to ragged, hitching respiration and murmurs of what could have been pain or fear. The girl muttered something, but it came out only as indistinguishable, muffled syllables strung together by shuddering breaths and uneven groans.

Tony frowned in irritation at the new disturbance from the girl. "Kitten, knock it off."

"No."

The inventor rolled onto his side and got to his feet, thoroughly annoyed by her defiance. "Kitten, some of us are trying to sleep and pretend we're in Fiji with half the Maxim cover models, so if you don't mind..."

"Please..."

It was the softest of exhalations, laced with unmistakable terror, timid and meek in a way Tony had only ever heard from Kitten once, yet it was more than enough to stop his arguments. She sounded so wholly pitiable between her quick gasps that it was almost difficult to distinguish the assassin from the seemingly vulnerable person that potentially lurked beneath that battle forged mask.

"Kitten..." Tony whispered hesitantly.

He heard her turn in the darkness unconsciously. "Don't..."

Tony reached out a hand and touched her shoulder, calling her name once more in a hoarse voice, "Kitten?" When she remained locked in the throes of whatever nightmare held her, he cleared his throat and tried again in an unlikely gamble. "Amatista?"

Kitten snapped without any prior warning or indication of waking, her fists flying at the sound of her birth name. The unexpected ferocity alarmed Tony. He started, jerking back and away from the mercenary, but she moved with a breakneck speed. Her bound hands frenziedly whipped through the darkness between them, boxing Tony in the ear.

"Damnit, Kitten!" The girl grumbled indistinctly in the darkness, but that did not sate Tony as his fingertips brushed the side of his ear. "What the hell?" The assassin shifted, moving away from him in the dark and circling in the void before settling down somewhere away from him, but Tony snapped again, "What is your problem?"

"Just leave me alone," the girl huffed.

"No."

The inventor said the word with a calculating and desperate conviction. He'd been bored, alone, and frightened for too long, a guitar string pulled far too taut. Tony's beyond overtaxed nerves frayed and snapped after all these games and trials. He had seen her reaction to the name Amatista. Why it had rattled her so much, Tony could only guess, yet it game him something to fend off the crushing boredom. He leered at her, a wicked smirked forming over his face even as the haphazard plan scrapped together in his mind to keep himself entertained.

Kitten heaved a fatigued sigh from the cimmerian depths of their sterile tomb. "It's none of your goddamned business."

"Why? Skeletons in the closet of the great Amatista?"

The girl's voice dropped to a venomous hiss, like a deadly asp coiling in the dark to strike. "Don't call me that."

"Amatista," the man repeated, his tone sharp and ferocious.

Tony knew he'd hit a nerve again when he heard the mercenary scramble to her feet again. He just grinned in victorious satisfaction at the knowledge that he'd driven her to fight, to shatter the monotony. The girl leapt at him and struck, her hands sweeping out to lay a stinging slap across his cheek. A fight, a chance to feel alive and have something to distract him. Kitten swung again, and Tony was ready for her, snatching her by her restrained wrists and swinging her about until she slammed head first into one of the walls. The combatants rolled about and wrestled for a few moments, each landing a few solid blows until they lay sprawled upon the floor, panting heavily, bruised and bloodied. Kitten spat, and, although he couldn't see in the darkness, Tony hoped her spit had been stained pink with blood. They both just remained there, exhausted from the mental, emotional, and physical explosion between them, even as the blinding, white lights snapped to life overhead.

Something clicked overhead with an unsettling noise. Tony scrambled to his feet, staring up curiously. Kitten, however, moved slowly and surely, hanging her head bowed and keeping her eyes tightly shut as she stumbled forward and pawed for her book. The clicking evolved and shifted, moving over their heads in the ceiling.

"I'd be closing my eyes right about now if I were you," Kitten said in a teasingly warning tone as she leaned over _American Gods _protectively.

But Tony's fear peppered curiosity refused to abate. He stared up, wildly glancing about and following the noise until a white mist sprayed down from overhead, blanketing the entire room. It burnt like acid upon his eyes where it hit and stung his skin everywhere. He hissed, grit his teeth, and snapped his eyes shut tightly, forcing both tears and the liquid from them. Tony threw himself down, curling his hands about his head protectively, while Kitten just laughed haughtily where she stood.

"Told you so," the girl mocked snappishly.

The mists continued to spray down upon them harshly for what seemed like an eternity until the entire room had been doused and the two were soaked to the skin. When the horrible, skin burning shower ceased, it dripped from the ceiling in a few patches, dropping with heavy plops. Tony tentatively lifting his arms and opened his red, raw and irritated eyes to look about. The entire room, including the clear walls had been hosed down the mystery liquid with an antiseptic stench. It dripped from the walls and ran down the clear panels in thin rivulets.

A guard appeared at the cell and opened the tiny window at the door. Kitten moved towards the door with no emotion in her face. She knelt before the guard, slipping her hands through the slot so the stranger could release her. Kitten held out her beloved copy of _American Gods _to the man beyond the polymer wall. As soon as he took the book, she stood and rubbed her sore wrists dolefully before doing something strange.

Tony glanced to his unwilling companion in confusion as she threw her head back and flipped her long, wet mane over with a splatter. Kitten's hair had been plastered to her skin, but her face was still dry from hanging her head as she had. With an unselfconscious disregard of Tony's presence, the girl peeled her drenched black tank off and dropped it to the concrete floor with a smacking plop. Kitten shimmied out of her plaid skirt and fishnets, letting it sit abandoned beside her shirt before shucking off matching underwear in scarlet with orange lace overlay. She stripped down to her pale skin, sending Tony's gaze to the ground with a hot flush for the first time in a long while in the presence of a nude female. Yet Kitten did it without seeming consciously aware of her actions, as though she'd did them completely unaware of it. Kitten gathered up her clothes and handed them to the guard through the slot, taking a white tank, matching panties, and a simple, orange jumpsuit from him to dress in. The girl poked her tongue out in disapproval at the clothes, handling the jumpsuit gingerly.

Tony staring at her eyes as the girl dressed in front of him, noting the solemnity there and the almost deathly void. The spark and fight had drained from her with the actions, and Tony vaguely recognized how practiced and rehearsed the motions seemed, institutionalized. He shook his head grimly at the thought of how long Kitten must have been there before to have garnered such a well-trained reaction from the fiery, untamable witch. The inventor silently wondered how long it had taken to break her so effectively before banishing such thoughts.

When she'd finished buttoning the front, Kitten stood at attention and bowed her head as she growled, "You gonna hurry up so we can get some breakfast, asshat?" Tony furrowed his eyebrows; annoyance flicked in Kitten's dark eyes without meeting his gaze. "Fuckmook, I'm talking to you."

Tony furrowed his eyebrows. "What's going on, Kitten?"

"Do you, or do you not want to eat, shit for brains?" the girl snapped in contempt, still avoiding eye contact out of spite as she slipped her hands through the slot to be fettered once more. "Simple fucking question."

He noticed the bitter venom to her words, but the man stubbornly refused to move. Kitten might have been more than willing to humiliate herself like that, but Tony wouldn't. Tony had survived far worse than a scalding, burning shower while in those dark, frigid caves. He wouldn't sink to her levels. No. He could sit there in his soaking, chaffing jeans and shirt until they dried.

Kitten shook her head and laughed derisely, "Suit yourself." She glared from where she stood. "When you get weak enough, they'll just force feed you."

Tony shuddered at the thought of yet another nasogastric tube in his life as his stomach growled once more to emphasize the point, before standing and undressing in an almost palpable shame. He'd never been shy about his anatomy, but it seemed somehow degrading to just put himself on naked display in front of the assassin. A part of Tony crumbled inward upon himself at the situation, embarrassed and afraid all at the same time. To his great relief, though, Kitten turned her head and averted her gaze as he dressed. Afterwards, she didn't even say anything until they were both settled back on the ground on opposite sides of the cell, eating a curiously foul tasting sludge.

When Tony wrinkled his nose at it, Kitten sighed. "Be glad it's mildly edible this time. Thank god for fucking cinnamon." The girl rolled her eyes madly. "They're really giving you the five star treatment."

It was a small slice of normality and jest that, under different circumstances, Stark might have appreciated. He sat defeated, slumped with his back against the wall, one hand idly stirring what Obadiah thought passed for food while the other plucked at his new threads distantly. They were guinea pigs now, pets for Obadiah and Nicholas Aurelius, and would remain as such unless he did something- anything- about it, as Kitten seemed preoccupied with Neil Gaiman. His mind churned now, with a massive puzzle spread before him.

When they came for him next, Tony didn't fight... as much.

xxxx

Pepper Potts slid along the wall, listening keenly. She'd been quite careful to avoid making any sounds and to keep unnoticed as the woman slunk from hall to hall, darting about the hidden bunker beneath the infamous Area 51. Pepper had even managed the foresight to keep her eyes peeled for security cameras and duck underneath their line of sight, fighting to keep from sniggering at the thought of how like a cheesy _Avengers_ or _Mission Impossible_ scenario it seemed.

The woman had only been intending a quick scan of the structure, now that it was late. Thirty minutes, at most, to get a basic lay of the land before starting an intensive search for Tony's gift to Rhodes. However, there did come a time when, eventually, even Pepper had to admit that she'd gotten turned around and lost once more. The woman cursed herself mentally for allowing such a foolish mistake to happen, but she'd been far too distracted with sneaking about without drawing any undue attention from the S.H.I.E..L.D. agents that patrolled the corridors and avoiding being caught on camera to notice she'd become horribly confused by how similar the bland walls and junctions appeared.

It wasn't until she rounded a corner right into the solid wall of muscle that looked rather cross with the personal assistant as he folded his arms across his well toned chest sternly and condescendingly asking, "Doing some sight-seeing, Miss Potts?"

She smoothed her shirt, self-consciously preening as she always did when flustered. "Not at all, Agent Fury."

"Then, do you mind telling me what exactly you have been searching for this last half hour." Even before Pepper could think to fabricate a decent fib, Fury held up a cautionary finger, wagging it in a clear warning. "And don't bother lying. I've been tailing you the whole time."

Pepper sighed in a huff and frowned darkly. "If you've been following me, then you already know by now, don't you?"

"Yes," the agent divulged simply and honestly, fixing the woman with a cunning stare, letting his hand drop to his side, to where, undoubtedly, a side arm had been hidden under his overcoat. "But, as your most gracious of hosts, I would truly, _truly_ appreciate your unabashed candor in the matter, if you please."

The woman shook her head and started to absently count the tiles at Fury's feet that marked the closing distance between them as the agent drew near. "I can't sit back and do nothing."

"What is there you can do?" When Pepper glowered hotly, the man went on. "Honestly, Miss Potts, what would you be capable of in a war?" The woman's jaw dropped agape, but Fury did not relent in his cool, calculated verbal assault. "Oh, yes, Miss Potts, do not be so naive as to think that this isn't a war you're employer has dragged you into."

Pepper furrowed her eyebrows. "What aren't you telling me?"

"It is rather complicated," Fury replied simply.

"Try me." Her lip curled in a faint, tired smirk. "I work for Tony Stark, incurable playboy, eccentric inventor, and admittedly functioning alcoholic with a rather flexible definition of the word 'functioning.' Complicated doesn't begin to cover some of the less savory situations Tony has put me through. So, either get out of my way or help me find what I'm looking for."

Fury cocked his head to one side. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a pistol, Miss Potts?"

Pepper definitely smirked now, thinking about the first time she'd met Tony, threatening to spray her supervisor with a can of pepper spray that she didn't actually possess and earning herself the nickname as well as the job of personal assistant to Tony Stark. "All the time, Agent Fury."

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: A little long, yes no? But, alas, I'm too distract a couple chapters ahead to bother trying to slim it down and chop it into two chapters. Hope you enjoy, as always!


	23. Teamspeak

**DUMPSHOCK - TEAMSPEAK **

"I work for Tony Stark, incurable playboy, eccentric inventor, and admittedly functioning alcoholic with a rather flexible definition of the word 'functioning.' Complicated doesn't begin to cover some of the less savory situations Tony has put me through. So, either get out of my way or help me find what I'm looking for."

Fury cocked his head to one side. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a pistol, Miss Potts?"

Pepper definitely smirked now, thinking about the first time she'd met Tony, threatening to spray her supervisor with a can of pepper spray that she didn't actually possess and earning herself the nickname as well as the job of personal assistant to Tony Stark. "All the time, Agent Fury."

Pepper Potts seemed a surprising creature in Nick Fury's mind. Not many people were willing to stand up so defiantly in his face, especially not individuals who knew who he was. In fact, most people were quite eager to completely crumble before him, cower like beaten puppies complete with tails set firmly between their legs and piss puddling at their feet. It had become such a common occurrence, metaphorically speaking, of course, that Nick Fury found it somewhat puzzling to be faced with completely the opposite reaction, and from an unarmed, untrained woman that was perhaps half his size at best, no less. However, ever the agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Fury bore no reaction save one of intensely piqued curiosity. No surprise. No shock. No sudden, scrambling need to regroup from this oddity.

"Please, just tell me what's going on?" Pepper requested once more.

"Miss Potts, as I've said, it's complicated. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s position in this matter has become... muddled."

The woman tapped her foot impatiently. "Un-muddle it."

"There have been rumors the last few years about a different class of people altogether. They've been called technomancers. High profile hackers capable of affecting computers directly, without terminals or intermediary devices of their own, as an act of free will," Fury announced rather simply, with an eerie emotional disconnect. "S.H.I.E.L.D. became heavily involved in ascertaining the validity of any claims but no found no factual evidence with the exception of a few very rare individuals."

"Jonas," the woman breathed.

"He's a gifted hacker, whether he is or isn't a technomancer, but we believe him to be the real thing." Fury gave a slow nod of admission. "We had Jonas, as well as a few others we had suspected, under close surveillance until all signs of them vanished in 2002. Our sources point to Ares Industries involvement in their disappearances."

He sounded reluctant to say anything more, and, so, Pepper pressed. "And?"

"Up until quite recently, in fact, S.H.I.E.L.D. received heavy corporate sponsorship from both Ares Industries and Stark Industries."

"So?" Pepper felt her hackles raise a small notch as something nagged in the back of her mind, gnawing and tugging at her subconscious relentlessly.

Fury frowned. "Parts of our security, weapons systems, computer network, all came from either Stark or Ares Industries." He sighed in clearly contained frustration at the situation. "That's what Uncle Sam gets for buying American purely to keep from supporting foreign industry."

"I don't follow."

"If Jonas is a technomancer, and working for Ares, then he has immediate access to information regarding all aspects of S.H.I.E.L.D.." Fury replied with an almost casual disregard for the stark severity of such a potential security breach.

"So, we're not really safe here, are we, Agent Fury?" Pepper demanded, nodding to the security camera over his shoulder.

Fury shook his head. "Quite the contrary, Miss Potts. You are safer here, at Groom Lake, than anywhere else on Earth." He rubbed the back of his neck, as though contemplating exactly how much he could admit to the woman before him. "Our own hackers have worked rather diligently for years ensuring that the only information out there on Groom Lake has been complete misinformation." He gave a small laugh. "Thank god for blogs. Conspiracy theorists have actually been helping out with that oddly enough, ever since Livejournal came out." He tapped at the wall beside Pepper absently. "We're completely cut off from all networks down here, as secure as any network can be, and well outside of wireless access. With the exception of maybe the summit of Mount Everest and the bottom of the Marianas Trench, you couldn't get any more secure."

"Oh, well that's comforting," the woman snapped.

"It should be. It means, no matter what Jonas is, technomancer or hacker, neither he nor Ares can find you here," Fury countered with an air of disdain. "This is the only place I could be certain Ares would never find you or Colonel Rhodes."

"And why are we so important?"

The man cracked his neck out. "You're important in all this because you're important to Tony Stark." He smiled at her warmly, perhaps too warmly, she thought. "If anyone has your employer captive, it is likely Ares Industries in conjunction with Obadiah Stane, and they will do anything, use any means, to get manipulate Mr. Stark to their advantage."

Pepper glared, feeling heat rolling right off her. "And you're not going to lift a finger to help him, are you?" She gave a small nod. "Coward." The woman pushed past him, shoving his arm out of the way. "Well, I'm not just going to sit around and do nothing. I did that once, and Tony ended up in this mess. I'm not going to just let it happen again."

Fury folded his arms sternly across his chest. "What exactly are you planning to do, Miss Potts?"

The woman shook her head, rubbing her arms dolefully. "I'm going to find Tony." Her lips curved into a faintly devilish smile. "And, then, I'm going to kick Kitten's ass for causing all of this mess." She moved to brush past him. "And Tony left us something a little extra."

"That's it?" Fury threw out an arm, stopping her, and cocked an eyebrow both curiously and mockingly at the same time. "That's your big plan? 'Let's just go in cocked, locked, and ready to rock? I'm going to go in and fuck shit up?'"

Pepper looked away, definitely stung by the verbal lash. "I hadn't thought that far ahead."

"Obviously," the man sniffed. "And how were you planning on going about that?"

"I'm not entirely certain," she admitted with a tired sigh.

The man smirked to himself, shaking his head. Then, much to Pepper's great curiosity, he pulled his Walther and pulled the clip. Quickly, and with practiced ease, Fury began to eject bullets from the clip, one after the other, palming each of them until he was left with one. The last bullet the agent replaced in the clip before reloading and pulling back on the slide to chamber that single round. Then, Fury just held out the pistol to the woman.

She blinked, momentarily collecting herself before turning her head slightly, not taking the firearm. "What's this for?"

"For you." Fury shrugged his shoulders oddly, still offering the gun to her. "Call it a present if you like."

"What's one bullet going to help?" Pepper demanded.

"It's a faster, easier, and less painful suicide than the one you're planning." The man gave a humorless laugh. "Unless you always _really _wanted to be buried without last rites, in an anonymous, unmarked, shallow grave somewhere."

"Well, you could always lend a helping hand," the woman hissed furiously.

The man gave a low nod. "I could. But it would be a breach of protocol in this case."

Pepper shook her head. "Military men. You're all the same."

Fury's lips curled slightly in a devilish grin. "I never said I didn't enjoy a good breach of protocol every now and again." He looked to the Walther in his hand. "But you're going to need more that just a cripple in a can and some guns if you're going up against a megacorporation like Ares."

Pepper pursed her lips together. As the last living Stark, Tony's will had been an important addition to his legal files, dredged out to be updated once every few years, or whenever she prodded him enough to getting around to it. Without an heir, Tony's will distributed both his assets and his controlling shares in Stark Industries about a wide spectrum of recipients. A few, his assistant was certain her employer had added only to shake things up a bit or just to annoy her specifically. Among her personal favorites to hate was one that stipulated that, upon the time of his death, she was to attempt to locate and verify all of his one night stands under the pretense of giving them a small token of his post-mortem esteem, but truly to verify whether he had beaten Wilt Chamberlain's record. However, after Afghanistan and facing his own mortality, Tony had been so kind as to bequeath much to various charities, leaving a rather hefty sum of the estate, as well as his controlling shares, to one Virginia "Pepper" Potts to do as she saw fit. Underneath that part, Tony had added in his near trade marked wit, "_For putting up with me for so long all these years- providing, of course, that she didn't actually have a hand in my demise in the end for everything that she's put up with._" He'd been so kind to leave her all the assets she could ever possibly need for this downright suicidal mission against an arms manufacturer.

"What are we going to need?" Pepper inquired, slowly calculating what exactly would be left to her in monetary assets granted Tony Stark's "untimely demise."

He pressed the Walther into her hand. "That's a start." Fury stepped back and away from her, opening his jacket to her. "Shoot me."

"What?!"

Fury's face grew set and stern. "Shoot me, Miss Potts."

Her hand trembled as she drew the pistol up. "I... I can't."

"You have to," the man replied steadily in an even and cool tone, nothing like the mischievous voice he'd used just seconds earlier.

Fury turned predatory and alien to her, his eyes feral and dark, disconcertingly so when compared to the curt but almost dangerously suave man. Fury had a sort of grace and cunning about him, like a malevolently benefactor of a secret agent. He'd always seemed the cool type who would could have extremely rough and extremely passionate sex with someone while dispatching enemies all around them, complete with an air of total disinterest. Yet, he'd never dared to raise even his voice to Pepper in his time, always reserving himself in her presence, as well as Tony Stark's, as though guarding both himself and the people around him from himself. This, however, was an entirely different breed of Nick Fury. This was a Nick Fury that had an utter disregard for human life if it meant getting what he needed. This was a Nick Fury that could- and would- end Pepper Potts right where she stood, and with a quick efficiency to it, perhaps not even breaking a sweat.

He went on in a low, throaty growl, "Look at it this way, Miss Potts. If you do not shoot me, I _am _going to attack you, and it is _not _going to be pretty."

Pepper shook her head, even as she stared down the sight of the pistol. "I can't."

"Decision time in five... four... three..." Fury's thick voice boomed and echoed in the hallway, reverberating soundly off the tile about them as he drew a rather dangerous looking survival knife from somewhere under his long coat, but it looked less like a knife and more like a talon in his more than capable hands. "Two... One."

"No," Pepper breathed as Fury moved, the motion of the black blade catching her eye menacingly.

When the agent shifting his weight, hunching down to tackle her and drive his shoulder into her, Pepper jerked back on the trigger. Not squeezed, but jammed her finger. The gun recoiled sharply with a ring screaming up the muscles of her arm and knocking the pistol back. Pepper had never fired a pistol in her life. Not ever. In fact, she'd been rather loathed to even hold one. Her eyes went wide at the thought of killing Nick Fury right there, in a S.H.I.E.L.D. operated installation, no less, but instinct had kicked in and overridden any fear of firearms.

Sadly, though, for her, the shot went wild, going right over Fury's shoulder and embedding its self into the wall behind him about two feet about his head with a puff of concrete and tile dust. Fury stood tall, turned, and studied the hole comparatively to his height. Even as Pepper stood there, her heart slamming in her chest, Fury just poked at the bullet hole in the wall with his finger, examining it.

"That... was terrible," Fury commented strangely, his voice almost distant before he turned on his heel and pointed at her like a displeased teacher about to shake his finger chidingly. "You, Miss Potts, specifically, are going to need some serious training." He glanced over his shoulder. "And some time on the range."

"You knew?" She whispered in shock.

"But of course," Fury admitted absently, returning to the distant and contemplative man and reaching out to take the spent Walther from her hands before she could attempt to dry fire the sidearm he'd gotten attached to over the years. "You don't get as far in S.H.I.E.L.D. as I have without being observant and intelligent about both your enemies and your allies."

"You bastard," the woman snarled and sulked as she let him take the pistol.

Fury shrugged. "I was right, though. You could not overcome your own emotions to even attempt to aim, and, even if you had, you were unlikely to hit granted your utter lack of training."

She nodded grimly in acknowledgment of the bitter truth, pushing it down. Pepper could get back at Colonel Fury for that dirty trick when she had Tony back. In fact, granted Tony's own mischievous nature, Pepper was fairly certain her employer would come up with some perfect prank or joke that would be a million times better than any of the plain, spiteful ideas she had. Something with a flare and style that only the smug Tony Stark could pull off effectively.

Pepper lifted her gaze to Fury, stone cold and empty. "What else are we going to need to get Tony back and put these assholes in their place?"

"You, Miss Potts, are going to need an army." He shrugged his shoulders in a tired expression. "And I can only assist you so far, officially, so we cannot county on S.H.I.E.L.D. or any governmental support."

Pepper looked down, biting her lip. "Where are we going to find an army?" The woman felt a tremble of nervous anxiety rise in her spine, and she let out an awkward, barking laugh. "It's not like we can just pull out the phone book and look up kamakaze runners and corporate spies."

"No," Fury admitted. "But there are people who hate Ares and Nicholas Aurelius as much, if not more, than you do and for far more profitable reasons."

Pepper furrowed her brow. "Who?"

"Mitsuhama."

**XXXX**

Sorry for the delay, but I was having a hard time making Miss Potts grow a spine when I was being distracted by the next chapter. So, you're getting a random update Monday after all this time! Hope you enjoy!!

And, yes, Nick Fury's an asshole at times, but, what can I say? Man gets the job done the way he see fits.


	24. Routine Maintenance

**DUMPSHOCK - ROUTINE MAINTENANCE**

They fell into a strange pattern, a daily routine. They would come for both Tony and Kitten alternating-ly in what he had dubbed their "morning," whisking the pair of them off for whatever batteries of tests and trials necessary for that day, until both where brought to the point of exhaustion. Medical tests, x-rays, cat scans, and a barrage of other trials that left Tony's body and mind raw and aching by the time they were done with him. Sometimes, Tony walked back to his cell of his one free will, barely managing to haul one foot in front of the other; other times, he merely woke up in the cell, obviously having been dragged and dumped there. And Kitten? She never made it back on her own two feet, looking worse and worse each time the guards deposited her on the cold tile floor, keeping her hands bound for the most part. They would be given a meager meal, but neither could summon the energy to eat after that. Then, the lights would go out.

After that, the pair of strange bed fellows slept restlessly through the night. Tony always awoke first, and generally to the sounds of Kitten's fitful dreams. After that, first fight in the dark, the man just let her go, listening in curiously to her faint murmuring and her gasped breaths. He kept his ears open, taking in every tortured sound and absently contemplating the juxtaposition of this seemingly haunted creature inside the brutal killing machine that was Kitten, trapped in dark dreams.

However, as soon as the lights kicked on in the morning, the mask returned. The pathetic, whimpering creature of the night and distant dreams gave way to the foul tempered, foul mouthed assassin. They argued and bickered, mostly over trivial things as Tony intentionally drove her to fight.

And, oh how they fought. Sometime in the mid morning, they always got into a physical fight, punching and kicking until the pair flopped out on the cold floor, panting heavily, feeling the heat roll off their muscles. They fought to the point of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion, until they had spent every bit of their energy in their aggressive, venting spars. Tony always managed to dredge up her rage and hatred of him, to entertain himself in between sessions with their torturers. Sometimes, Tony won. Other times, Kitten won. Mostly, though, their brawls ended in a complete draw, with neither having any strength to throw anything else at the other except for perhaps a harsh verbal lashing.

The first fight had caught Tony by surprise entirely. It hadn't been the fight that shocked him, though. He had been partially expecting Kitten to strike out at him, either physically or verbally, after the man intruding upon something too intimate, too personal. The man accepted this with as much disregard as he could muster, knowing that, where the roles reversed, Kitten would have most likely elicited the same reaction. No. What had surprised Tony was that, even in that most bitter of moments and even in the subsequent fight he drew from her, Kitten never reached for whatever her powers was. Even in their daily spats, the girl settled for fists, feet, and, on at least one occasion when Tony had her soundly pinned, teeth and nails. It unsettled Tony, as though the girl was either completely tapped out and, in that case, utterly useless for any escape attempt, or Kitten consciously suppressed what Tony knew had to be a building urge to just unleash Hell upon him in all her glory and splendor. It had not gone without notice.

Nor did it go without notice that, slowly, over time, Tony started to win more fights than not. Granted, there seemed as many ties, but Kitten stopped winning as much over the long days that slipped past them. She seemed listless and tired after a week or two, indoctrinated into this new routine of theirs with an eerily solemn grace of grudging acceptance that confused the inventor.

The previous day had been hard on her, he knew. There were only a few days here and there where she came back dripping blood from all of the orifices on her face in thick rivers that choked her breaths when she attempted to swallow it down. Kitten had been dumped back in the cell on the floor where she lay unconscious for some time. Tony awoke in the middle of the night, however, to the sound of her retching violently in the darkness and the metallic tang of iron on the air and his tongue. He sat up in a strange vigil as she settled back to merciful sleep until the lights came on the morning, revealing the grizzly scene of a bloodied Kitten lying in a pool of blood and vomit, but somehow sleeping soundly. The assassin didn't even wake for their antiseptic showed except but to make a gruff murmur. When she did finally sit up and fetched her now damp book, she looked at it in confusion with dazed eyes set in face sickly light with anemic pallor.

That day Tony noted how pale Kitten had become, how drawn her face seemed, and his plans began to solidify. He had spent days searching during every one of their little tests, submitting to each little terrible act against him, keeping his mind and eyes open for any other nodes about the place. Occasionally, Tony balked or formulated another half-hearted escape attempt, knowing it would fail miserably, if only to keep the guards on their toes. He voluntarily walked when they came for him, paying sharp attention to the layout to build a mental map of the few other places he'd been taken, but, judging from Kitten, it was taking too long.

Forget Kitten. Judging from his own aching and tired body, it was taking too long. The tests and trials were not without their own debilitating and painful side effects on Tony. He wasn't certain what entirely they were doing to him anymore, but, sometimes, he just didn't care. The man just held on to the thought of Pepper, of how sweet it would be to hold her close to him as he had so desperately wanted to on the tarmac after getting back from Afghanistan. He looked to the girl who seemed to be struggling to read, feeling the urge to bother her rising again amid the aimless and grim pondering.

"So, seen any good movies lately?" Tony teased limply, not even summoning the energy to lift his head to meet Kitten's gaze. He smirked and half-chortled. "I bet I can guess your favorite movie."

The girl gave a muffled sound of response, neither to the positive nor the negative. Instead, she remained focused on the book in her hands. The way her eyes jerked over the words, though, Tony knew it had to be an effort for her, granted her current state, to truly get anything from her book at the time.

"Let me see..." Tony scratched at the growing scruff at his chin. "_The Professional_? Nah. Too sentimental." He thought for a moment as she gave no response before guessing again. "Hmmmm... _The Boondock Saints_? Nah. I don't think you're the humor kind of person. Although the rope gag is absolutely one of the most underrated jokes in movies." The inventor finally glanced up to meet her before setting his trump card. "I've got it. _V for Vendetta_." Tony nodded slowly, mocking her in his own way. "Yeah, terrorists parading around as heroes, trying to overthrow a government." He drew a breath, recalling some of the darker scenes to the movie. "Torture and human experimentation. Right up your alley, right?"

When she didn't respond to his needling, Tony worried for a moment. He never worried much about Kitten. She was his enemy, but the man knew he could trust her to handle herself. Yet, she often responded well to his baiting, snapping and snarling whenever Tony pushed too far, in what had become his only form of entertainment. The girl merely ignored him, stoic-ly reading _American Gods_ without any interest in his baiting that morning.

When the rasping sound of another page turning in Kitten's book, the boredom and annoyance finally got to him, and he sighed, switching tactics as he asking icily, "Is that book all you care about?"

"Between you and the book, I chose the book any day," Kitten admitted without any emotion, her eyes carrying a seething hatred even as she struggled to read on.

Tony sighed and clambered to his feet unsteadily, pacing back and forth down the long, clear window, studying the cell intensely, for a few moments before he completely snapped, shouting, "What's so important about this book anyway?!"

His long, mechanics hands shot out, grabbing the book and tearing it from her startled hold. Even as the inventor reeled back and away from her with his prize, Kitten was on her feet, leaping and snarling in a heartbeat. She swung her bound hands together as one with a crushing blow to the side of his head. He faintly heard eagle screams in the distance of his mind even as the girl brought the hefty locks of her restraints down up him in a savage, driving strike.

Tony had been partially expecting the violent reaction even after his own, childish outburst, and he neatly rolled to the side, riding out the force of her hit and barely feeling it. He came about quickly, throwing a punch with his right fist for her ear and striking soundly as he clutched the book with his left hand close to his chest. Kitten stumbled back, her bound hands reaching up to her ear to check for bleeding in a heart beat before coming back for him. Tony felt a grin form as she blinked, obviously mildly disoriented from the slam.

She sprang off the ground, but Tony caught her mid leap and sent her to the ground. He had several distinct advantages over the mercenary. Her every move was driven by primal rage, fueled by some unknown and borderline obsessive compulsive need to reclaim what Tony continually reminded himself remained to be nothing more than a ten dollar paperback book. His every blow and swing was driven by a calculated need to break the boredom and monotony, much more collected that her random swings. She was weaker than he, as well, completely drained still from whatever they'd done to her the day before. The inventor also had the use of both of his hands, whereas Kitten had been forced to strike out with her bound hands. Although, the man had to admit it was clever of her to use the locks on the restraints to her advantage. And, now, his longer reach and larger mass solidified the advantages he held over her.

Tony tackled Kitten to the ground, slamming her back hard against the cold, tile floor with a hefty, meaty thud. Yet the mercenary wasn't down for the count. She kicked out from under him and threw her weight to the side, rolling Tony over and straddling him. The assassin shoved the short chain of her restraints onto his neck, letting her weight press down upon his throat. The cold, steel links dug into his skin with a frozen chill. Tony tensed, keeping his muscles tight, and hurled himself up and at her. Kitten went rolling to the side this time, allowing the inventor the opportunity to regain his spot atop of her. He grabbed her bound hands by the chain and held them over her head as the girl spit right in his face. Tony grinned in smug satisfaction as she writhed and wriggled under him.

But, then, that satisfaction fell away from him when he noted the look upon her face. It wasn't just rage or hatred anymore. No. The color had completely drained from her, and her features went slack with an unspoken horror. Her mouth hung open in a silent scream as she continued to squirm and try desperately to pry herself free from his hold, to get out from under his pressing weight. On her marble white face was a symphony of terror and primal fear, as even her breaths became shallow, rasped, and rapid, her body trembling underneath him as her pulse fluttered with butterfly beats where his body pressed against hers.

Tony grit his teeth, holding the book above her, in her face tauntingly. "What the hell is so god-damned important about this stupid book that you'd rather it than even try to for freedom?"

She twisted away from him between his legs and refused to answer. Her jaw clenched tightly, setting the muscles in her neck. Kitten clawed in vain with her fingers at the restraints, reaching for Tony's hands. He sneered right in her face, his breath hot upon her skin, and, still, the girl winced away, as though terrified of him. The girl closed her eyes for a moment, attempting desperately to manage a few, controlled, recovery breaths, like a woman in labor.

Relishing in his victory, Tony never noticed the girl shifting underneath him. Kitten drew her knee up between his legs and giving him a shot square in the family jewels. The blow gave slip to his hold on her hands, and Kitten gripped his pinkie, jerking it downward with a sickening pop. He howled and slumped forward atop her, trying to shake it off as best as possible, but Tony's momentary distraction and injury had given Kitten the opportunity to wrench her hands free of his hold and draw back. When the inventor looked down at his quarry, it was just in time to see the heel of a palm rushing towards his nose before it struck soundly with a fibrous crunch. Tony flopped back, instinctively reaching to touch his nose and to test for any breaks as a familiar, coppery taste graced his lips. She had drawn first blood, but, as Tony looked down to his free hand, the man noticed he still had the book, clutched with most of his fingers save the pinkie, which jutted to the side at an unnatural angle.

"What is so important about a book you can replace anytime you want for ten bucks?" Tony demanded again, drawing the paperback and his clearly dislocated finger close to him protectively.

Kitten lunged once more, reaching for the book and it alone, abandoning all attacks. Her hands found purchase on what little space remained untouched by Tony. The mercenary bared her teeth and bucked back, trying to wrench the book from him. Her desperation surprised Tony, but the inner child and the stubborn ass in him held tighter to the book. Kitten gave another wild jerk to the side, and the spine of the book gave in a terrible rip that echoed in the cell. Kitten slammed back into the wall, her face white as a ghost and sorrowed as she gaped at what had just happened.

Shocked, Tony glanced down to his own hand. There rested the cover and perhaps the first half of _American Gods_, in all its glory. The pages and spine had gone moist in the morning shower without Kitten clutching it to her chest to keep it dry, leaving the binding soft, pliant. It had given without hesitation. When the man returned his gaze to the mercenary, Kitten lovingly cradled her half of the book in her pale hands, holding it close to her with the care one might use to hold an injured bird.

"You sonovabitch."

The girl stood, defiant and sure, her eyes flickered with wildfire. The air went hot in a flash, an oven kicking on around them. The hairs on the back of Tony's neck stood on end, even as he saw the strange, orange flow emanating from her back against the concrete wall. Tony scrambled back and away from her as Kitten took slow, deliberate steps, seemingly a woman possessed. The mercenary stretched her muscles even as eagles screeched behind her. The room became an oven, hot and pressing, claustrophobic and crushing as intense heat rolled off of the girl.

"Kitten... don't..." Tony whispered, his words dropping to a faint hush as the abrupt and instinctively driving need for self preservation reared up in him.

The girl glared, fire snapping in her eyes as she cracked her neck dramatically and repeated grimly, "You. Goddamned. Sonovabitch."

"Kitten, you'll kill us both."

And, with that, Kitten gave pause before unleashing the absolute hell Tony knew her to be capable of. The mercenary was homicidal, granted, but not suicidal in the slightest. The glow from behind her vanished, melting away to nothing. The air turned cold and antiseptic once more. Kitten glanced to the tattered half of the book in her hands. Tony watched curiously as the girl turned the back half of _American Gods_ over and flipped a few of the pages absently, tensing and quivering as the girl visibly struggled to retake control of the volcano erupting within her, spewing her own rage.

Then, she withdrew with a sigh, turning away from him and waving her newly halved portion of Neil Gaiman's masterpiece. "I've got the better half anyway."

"You going to tell me what's so important about this book, or do you want to go for round two?" Tony inquired, somewhat charged and still primed for another fight as he slowly rose to a predatory crouch, enjoying the adrenaline rush that came from the brawl and seeking at least a bit of vengeance for his ruined finger. He smirked slightly, enjoying seeing exactly how much it put the girl on edge. "I'm good for another round if you are."

Kitten sniffed and looked over her shoulder, her eyes narrowed and her gaze downcast. "I read about you, did you know that?"

"No," Tony admitted, shaking his head hotly in confusion at this odd logic jump.

The girl drew in a deep breath, pursing her lips into a quizzical expression that could have passed for a pouty smile. "In _Vanity Fair_ magazine. They had an article about what happened to you in Afghanistan. I read it, enjoyed word of it."

"That big of a fan of mine?" the man teased sarcastically as he drew his dislocated finger close to figure some way to nurse it. "I'm flattered."

Kitten made a gruff sound. "Don't be, dirtbag." The girl shook her head and chided, "You had it coming." She fiddled with the half-book in her hands, perhaps nervous, perhaps nostalgic, and perhaps enraged at the same time; Tony couldn't tell from her expression nor her tone of voice. "How long were you in that cave?"

He snorted to himself. "I thought you said no heart to hearts."

"This isn't a heart to heart. This is very fucking different," Kitten snarled back at him testily. "This is important." She simmered down slightly, her muscles tensing mildly as she obviously fought to rein in the firestarter in her, as she simply asked once more, "How long?"

"92 days."

The admission came out harshly but bluntly. It was the truth, in a way. Tony had been held captive for 92 days, from the day he was taken from the convoy until the day Rhodes picked him up in the desert. However, in a way, it was only a half truth. The first five days, Tony had spent drifting in and out of consciousness, hardly aware of his deadly surroundings nor his dire physical condition. There was another small chunk of days in the middle of his captivity spent in another blur of illness from the infection about the sunken surgical port of the electromagnet. And, after it all, he had spent at least a day wandering in the dunes on his own before Rhodes honed in on his location from the explosions Tony had set off during the flight from the caves. All in all, he had only spent perhaps 75 to 80 days lucid, captive, and aware of his situation.

"You got off light." The girl gave another strange chortle, rubbing the strained and knotted muscles on the side of her neck, shaking her head. "Do you have any idea how long I was here last time?"

"No..." Tony felt a small lurch in his chest, a knife twist of foreboding.

The mercenary spun about on her heel. Tony had been expecting there to be tears upon her face, possibly some clear signs of misery, grief, or sorrow, but there was nothing to her expression but a cool, collected loathing and hatred. The man had mistaken her admissions as ones of perhaps compassion or regret. Indeed, a part of Tony had been hoping for such a reaction to at least claim some small measure of revenge for his now aching finger. Instead, Kitten looked hotter and far angrier than before, glaring viciously at the inventor from across the cell.

Kitten cocked her head to one side, like a hawk. "Care to venture a guess?" Tony limply shook his head, his mouth hanging slightly agape, but Kitten just grinned madly at him as though in a macabre victory over her cellmate despite the loss of half of her precious book. "Hm? No? No guesses? Not even one?"

"Kitten?" the man breathed.

"38 months."

Tony blinked in shock and repulsion. "What?!"

"Thirty eight fucking months," Kitten repeated, putting a clear and almost sinister stress on each word. The girl laughed uncomfortably, spinning to stalk back and forth across the cell. "Do you have any idea how long that is? Thirty eight months..." She tipped her head back and let out a delirious cackle. "And for thirty eight months, this 'stupid book'"- Kitten's lip curled in distaste of the phrase -" is the only thing that kept me sane." She waved the book, brandishing it like a deadly, flashing sword at him. "Just me, Mr. Wednesday, Shadow, and fucking Czernobog" Kitten kicked at the wall with her boot in a aggressive, but whole-ly tame vent of her fury. "Like some grand old fucking picnic!" The girl gave her head a quick shake as she lamented in a rough and distant tone, "They were my only _civil_ companionship those three years."

And, with that, the girl diffused completely, having vented the last scraps of her fury with a faint scent of ozone. She dropped into a corner of the cell far and away from Tony. She let her head hang even as her hands subconsciously pawed at her half of the book to find a good spot in the plot to start her reading at since. Without the first half, chronology of the book was no longer important to her, and Tony knew that, after three years with just that book, the girl must have memorized Neil Gaiman's every word in the book of Shadow's misadventures with Mr. Wednesday. Hell, after so many readings of the book, Tony figured Kitten could probably tell him the entire story, in word for word accuracy down to the last carefully crafted nuance of Gaiman's subtle writing style. The girl sighed, located a good spot and settled in to try once more to read.

The inventor just sat there for a moment, numbed by her bittersweet confession, perhaps the first and only open, honest moment he'd ever seen from the assassin. It was the rarest of human shades to Kitten, and, now that it was exposed, Tony couldn't help but stare at it. The profane, foul tempered visage that was Kitten was only a mask that sharpened in front of the inventor to puff up and try not to show any weakness or fear, like an animal cornered. The quiet, contemplative creature that adored Neil Gaiman and read constantly, that was all that remained of Amatista Labropoulos after all of the sins that Obadiah and Aurelius committed against her in the name of science and progress. She hid her true self behind a blind hatred.

And not that Tony could blame the assassin now that he knew how long she had been at Obadiah's and Aurelius's mercy. Thirty eight months. It made the bit of time the millionaire had been held captive seem like nothing, a sneeze in comparison to the harsh stretch she had done in the cell. And, while Tony's captivity had not been an entirely comfortable one, especially granted the massive trauma to his chest and the struggle to complete the Mark I suit, it most assuredly could not have been as brutal as what Kitten had suffered for as long as she had. The worst Tony had to endure after his infection was a primal and instinctive terror for both his life and Yinsen's. Kitten had to survive day after day of torture in the name of science, knowing that, the very next morning, they would come for her again and repeat the process. Tony had at least had Yinsen, a calm and reserved man, but a good conversationalist, while Kitten had only the fictional world of Neil Gaiman and his sordid characters. She had been alone, utterly alone, in every way that counted, most likely dying a slow death day by day mentally and emotionally. He could not imagine finding the strength and defiance to survive in this dark place for over three years, yet a sixteen year old girl had done it somehow. It softened even Tony's own scathing rage at the girl to think of her and their comparative pasts so.

Tony felt a solemn apology escape him before he had even thought of it, unsure if he'd even meant it or if it just slipped out as a polite gesture of contrived manners, even despite the pain she'd just inflicted upon him. "Kitten, I'm sorry."

"Don't. Just. Don't." The girl held up a warning finger, almost losing her new place in her half of the book. "Don't you fucking dare. We already discussed the no goddamned heart to hearts rule." She returned her finger to _American Gods _to secure her spot among the cheap, newsprint pages. "I'm not your sister. I'm not your friend. I don't even fucking like you. So, whatever you have to say, save it. I seriously don't want to fucking hear it."

"I didn't know," the man heaved with a sigh even as he curled up in his corner, drawing his mangled and painfully throbbing left hand close to him.

Kitten glared up at him from over the book, her eyes narrowing in intense accusation. "No, you didn't."

**XXXX**

Yeah, I was going to break this up into two chapters just so you guys could have THREE chapters today, but this one fits better by its self. So, alas, a short one and a long one back to back. Enjoy seeing a small sliver of a real person behind an assassin? Well, I hoped you did, as much, if not more than I hope you enjoy when you get see to her actually history later. It's already penned out. I just need to rework the transition into it. So, cheers to the few people still reading!


	25. Internet Treatise

**Warning: Spoilers content for **_**American Gods**_**. It had to come up sooner or later, but, I assure you, there is a reason for it. Just wait. I promise. And, possibly, go buy yourself a copy of it if you want to play DUMPSHOCK the home game! You have been warned, so please don't blame me and say I "ruined" **_**AG **_**for you.**

**DUMPSHOCK - INTERNET TREATISE**

_"Tony..."_

_She whispered his name in a husky voice, low and sultry. Her thin lips pursed slightly, as though begging- begging for him!- from her pale, freckled face framed with long, loose, ginger locks. Her eyes gazed into his longingly, and, in those depths, he saw home. The woman stood before him in her usual business attire, but her jacket hung open, unbuttoned, demure yet risque and suggestive in a way, considering Virginia "Pepper" Potts was never perfectly pressed and primped with her hair neatly pulled back and dressed to the nines. In a way, it felt somehow more provocative than anything in the world- even the couture lingerie that had been personally modeled for him by twelve Maxim cover models. _

_"Pepper," he breathed even as she looked up at him, as thought afraid to dispel whatever magic had strung them together in that moment._

_Much to his surprise, she threw herself at him, wrapping her long arms about him. Those hands of hers snaked about his back and held him tight. She pressed herself against him as though needy and desperate for the warmth of his body. He blinked in surprise. He'd always wanted Pepper, somewhere deep down inside, and, now that she held him so... so _intimately_, it felt so utterly right. He drew his arms about her and embraced her warmly. _

_Tony felt her hot tears against his chest. _

_"Where are you, Tony?"_

_He nuzzled against the side of her head, drawing in the deep scent of her. Flowers. Perhaps jasmine and vanilla orchid. Tony was never very good with feminine things to tell such things. He was much, much more adept at identifying alloys, equations, and potential stress points than he was at determining whatever unique mixture made the lady-like aroma about Pepper Potts. In fact, on the rare occasion when he had needed to select a present for a woman, he merely waited for Pepper to simply supply him with it, even if it was for her like that icy blue dress of hers- paid for with his credit card, of course. Yet, underneath that floral perfume, Tony caught the faintest of hints of something else, the warm, mellow scent of old paper. While Tony couldn't place the shampoo or the perfume, it seemed quintessentially Virginia "Pepper" Potts. _

_The woman suddenly tensed, clutching Tony tighter to herself as her hands balled into involuntary seeming fists. "Tony..." She shuddered, drawing in an almost ragged breath as though sobbing before she asked again, "Tony, where are you?"_

_"I'm right here," he whispered into her ear in as low and soothing of a voice as possible._

_"Why did you leave?" she rasped._

_Tony shook his head as confusion settled upon him. "I didn't go anywhere."_

_"Why did you die?"_

_The millionaire jumped back and away from her, and, as he did, he could see himself reflected in the windows of his palatial Malibu mansion behind her. His body withered right before his eyes in a breath. It started with his skin, as it drained of color to a sickly, grey pallor, covered in a sheen of glistening, clammy sweat. His muscles began to shrink away as his skin slowly pulled taut as a drum over his bones. Even the flesh of his cheeks sunk inward in emaciation as the hollows of his eyes deepened, leaving a skeletal face staring back at himself. _

_"No..."_

xxxx

The inventor jerked awake in the darkness from the question as the dream shattered about him, replaced with the cold reality of the small cell, the aches of both his body and his mind, and the fitful sounds of his unwilling companion dreaming from the far side of the cell. Tony slowly sat up, feeling his muscles stiffly protesting against one another as he moved in the pitch black. He let himself slump weakly against the wall, feeling bone weary despite however long he and Kitten had been sleeping off the trials and experiments. Tony drew his knees up and hugged them to his chest.

"Pepper..."

The name left his lips somewhere in the hazy realm between a whisper, a prayer, and a whimper. Tony frowned as he strained to vividly recall her face, her eyes, her smile, and her voice. Professional. Elegant. And yet utterly sincere and somehow compassionate. He tried to ignore the disastrous ending of the dream and focus on her and her alone. Demure, yet entrancing and sensual.

The man shuddered to himself. The day before had been abusive on him to say the least. Jonas and Obadiah had been demanding him to hack servers with active firewalls. When his mind had come into contact with the firewalls, they had reacted instinctively to the alien intrusion. The programs had moved with an almost predatory grace and an almost human knowledge, hunting down his presence on the server in an attempt to boot what was obviously perceived as a network security threat. The firewall had been calculating, strong, and brutally accurate in its retaliation. The real world effect, however, was not as simple and elegant, leaving Tony feeling like he'd been hit by a freight train. He didn't remember being brought back to the cell, nor Kitten being taken. Instead, Tony awoke some hours later when the guards dumped the unconscious girl into the cell before drifting away once more.

Instinctively, Tony reached out in the darkness. His fingers skimmed over the chilled tile floor until they found the soft edging of his prize perhaps only a few inches away in the void. The man took it and brought it close to him protectively. _American Gods_. It was funny; just a few days earlier, Tony had almost hated the book, seeing it as nothing more than a hard earned trophy from another Kitten fight. Yet, after another particularly bad session that had ended in a not too different outcome, Tony had felt his life slowly spinning away from him in a swirling haze of pain and disorientation. It was only then that he had taken a page from Kitten and cracked open his half of _American Gods_. The inventor settled in to read and, since then, he'd found himself equally as engrossed with the novel as Kitten seemed.

It wasn't a bad book, really. In fact, it was quite intelligently woven, from what Tony could tell. Neil Gaiman painted a picture of the modern American landscape, complete with apartments crowded with foreigners, cheesy tourist traps like the House on the Rock, all sorts of places.

_American Gods _told the story of Shadow Moon, an ex-convict due for parole, only to be released early due to the untimely demise of his wife, Laura. While on a red eye flight back to his home town, Shadow was propositioned by a mysterious Mr. Wednesday, who attempted to hire him as his right hand man. Unnerved, Shadow got off the plane a stop early and did not get back on. He took careful note that he was the only passenger to leave that particular flight and watched it take off. As such, was more than mildly unnerved when he ran into the very same Mr. Wednesday in the bathroom of a tacky bar and restaurant not far from the airport. Tony found that to be more than mildly amusing and only enjoyed it all the better when a Southern Comfort drinking leprechaun by the name of Mad Sweeney walked into the picture.

Just as Shadow Moon became inescapably pulled into Mr. Wednesday's employ, Tony felt himself slowly being hauled into the book. By the end of the bar scene, the inventor felt himself completely engrossed by the novel. Every waking moment, he read more and more, despite being completely aware of the dreaded break in the novel where his half ended and Kitten's half began. When the two weren't preoccupied with their sordid trials, unconsciousness, or brawling, they both sat with their noses firmly rooted in the pages. It wasn't often that he could muster the effect to read for what felt like perhaps an hour or two, but Stark had always been a fast reader, consuming the carefully crafted words with great relish.

He had particularly liked how utterly ingenious Mr. Wednesday was. When he needed to pay Shadow for his services, Wednesday proceed to go to the nearest Kinkos and print up a few things. Then, he dressed in a business suit and went to the nearest bank ATM, with Shadow camped out across the street in a local grocer. As Shadow watched, Wednesday put up signs at the ATM proclaiming it out of order, and went about collecting the intended deposits of people, even having them sign for their money. When the police showed up, as they were bound to, Mr. Wednesday made a great big show of handing them the business card of his employer at a security company. When the police called this mystery employer to ensure that everything was as it should be, Shadow picked up the phone across the street in the store and vouched for his own employer. A perfect two-man con that even Tony Stark had to admit was nothing less than slick and well executed.

The further he got into the book, the more and more he felt like Shadow Moon. Mr. Wednesday, it seemed, represented the gods of old living in America, although Tony hadn't quite worked all of them out in his mind, while their rivals, modern gods of television, media, and more, were out to destroy the old. The inventor had almost actually laughed out loud when the televised Lucille Ball asked if Shadow had ever wanted to see her tits, during the scene where the gods of new tried to sway Shadow to their side while talking through an old episode of _I Love Lucy_. Yet, there was always Mr. Wednesday there, cautiously working his magic and turning people, swaying them to his needs. Tony couldn't help but feel manipulated by Mr. Wednesday as he sympathized with Shadow, as though Obadiah Stane were his own Mr. Wednesday. The more and more he thought about it, the more and more Stark liked Shadow, and the less and less he trusted Mr. Wednesday.

There was something so sickly unsettling about the way Obadiah watched Tony when they trotted out Jonas to work with him and coax the reactions they needed from the inventor. The older man maintained a steady, hungry gaze upon his once business partner. Tony could almost see Stane calculating just how profitable a pet technomancer could be for Stark Industries and specifically for Stane. After all, who needed to worry about such trivial concerns as profit sharing and market trends to stay in the black when you could just alter electronic bank accounts? Among that lay a bit of comfortable disdain and distance, as though Stane saw his captives as both potential profit and as inhuman lab animals. It frightened Tony in a way he couldn't completely explain, as he wondered what lengths Obadiah would go through to get whatever it was the man wanted from Kitten and Tony.

Tony held _American Gods _up to his chin, breathing in the deep and suddenly intoxicating scent of the newsprint as his mind recalled the undercurrent to Pepper's scent. His mind drifted, almost picturing Pepper reading _American Gods_, perhaps even curled up on one of the couches of the mansion with the novel. The more he allowed himself to slip into the thought, the more vivid it became, right down to the details of Pepper in her pajamas, cradling a mug of cocoa as she read. It didn't feel right to think of the woman in such an almost intimate and tender sense in his home, nor did the mental image truly fit the persona of the woman he knew so well. Yet Tony Stark was never one to begrudge anyone- least of all himself- of a fantasy or two. Pepper Potts, hair down, out of her pressed suits, relaxed, and in his own home, at ease with him enough to show a soft side. It was a fantasy Tony could have almost died in if he could just will it. Tony lulled in the mental image as long as he could, no matter how unlike Pepper it seemed, enjoying the tenderness of it much more than any fickle, passing sexual fantasy in his life. He held tight to the image, vowing to give Pepper a copy of the novel, new mug, and pajamas, if they managed to make it out of there alive.

And, then, a small quiver hit Tony. Pepper. The man had been so caught up in his own survival over however long Obadiah had held them, that he hadn't even thought about Pepper except for his own mental and emotional comfort. The last time Obadiah came after Tony, he'd gone after Pepper as well. While Tony couldn't be certain anymore of Obadiah's mental state considering how careful the man behaved around his test subjects, he could be sure of one thing; any affection or sentimentality that had once been between Obadiah Stane and Pepper Potts had died a slow and grizzly death long ago. Tony groaned inwardly and pulled his knees tighter to his chest as his mind reeled with the vast and seemingly infinite array of evils Obadiah could possibly be inflicting upon the woman even in that moment.

"Pepper," he whispered.

His mind spun utterly out of control, spiraling towards oblivion with all the possibilities. Pepper hurt, bruised, bleeding and broken as she stumbled and ran down a dimly lit corridor from an unseen assailant. Pepper seriously maimed, shot in the heart or stabbed in the gut, viscera spilling from deep, angry wounds upon the floor as she fell to the ground. Pepper crippled like Rhodes, her hands clawing out to drag her useless legs behind her in a desperate bid for freedom and safety. Her eyes broke his heart, those piercing and haunting eyes of her, as, in his mind, she cried scarlet tears of blood and begged for some mercy. And, in those eyes, reflected back, was her assailant, shifting between the shadowy image of Obadiah, Jonas, Aurelius, both the Mark II and the Mark III suits, and even himself.

Tony hadn't even realized that he had begun to cry at some point until his chest tightened in small, lurching and painful sobs. The inventor bit his lip and held it in his teeth, trying to push down the sorrow that had suddenly cropped up. He couldn't afford to cry or be emotional. Not then. Tony could ill afford to show any weakness in front of Stane, Aurelius, Jonas, or Kitten, for tears and fears were only for broken creatures that were slowly becoming resigned to their fate. Tony was neither broken nor accepting of the situation, yet, no matter how bad it seemed to be. Nor could Tony afford the time to be emotional anymore. He stifled his own emotions and roughly wiped away his hot tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand.

Besides, Tony knew for a fact, if anyone dared even raise a hand to Virginia "Pepper" Potts, she would end them there. Pepper was a wild tigress masquerading as a house cat, and Tony knew it. She's gone toe to toe with corporations, businessmen, politicians, generals, and tabloids that would have made any lessor woman cry, and all the while with a cool, sophisticate detachment. His lips curled in a smirk when he thought of his personal assistant threatening his own corporate security with a can of pepper spray and even daring to stand in the face of the Iron Monger. No. He couldn't and wouldn't dwell on any thoughts of Pepper hurt or injured, not when he knew the woman would probably fight to the end and most likely even come out in the end on top without even putting a run in her perfectly prim stockings.

"I thought big boys didn't cry," Kitten teased in a low, mocking hiss in the void before him as he calmed himself.

"They don't."

The assassin let out a slight chuckle. "Then what was that all about?"

Tony worked for a moment to pull himself back together and compose himself, a skill he'd earned well in his years from having to give quite a few speeches and lectures while absolutely inebriated. Subconsciously, he shifted his jaw but forced his body to loosen up and relax, sprawling out. It took only a minute at the most to put on his very best facade before he even considering answering her. He wouldn't be played so simply, and especially not by the likes of Kitten.

The inventor smirked. "Y'know, for someone who set a no heart-to-heart rule, you seem to like breaking it a lot." He laughed, a barking, unconvincing sound escaping his mouth. "What are you? A walking episode of _Fullhouse_?"

"Hey, I'm not the one crying like a little nancy," Kitten snapped.

Tony shrugged in annoyance. "I'm not the one who has nightmares."

"No, but I don't look like I fell out of Lifetime movie."

The man drew in a hiss between his teeth of feigned insult. "Ouch. A Lifetime movie? I'm hurt. I don't even warrant that Jack guy from _Lost_?"

"No. Jack cried a lot, but he had his epically, bad-ass moments, too." But he could hear the smirk on her face. "I mean, c'mon, Jack went out to hunt down the Others how many times and went toe to toe with Ben. What the hell have _you_ done to earn that?"

"I wouldn't know," Tony replied with a dark edge to his own voice. "I'm not exactly up to speed on _Lost_."

Between any two other people on the planet, it would have sounded like nothing more than the sort of vicious banter that goes back and forth between two absolute enemies at family reunions amid quick requests to pass the mustard. Scathing and with calculated aim, but completely indirect and utterly condescending at the same time. It was a game between them, and one in which Tony knew he could best anyone else in the world except for Pepper Potts. He shot her a cutting glare, despite not seeing her, and despite knowing she could see him, like the black sheep of the family that just wouldn't follow the herd in what was safe, expected, and rational.

Over the years since his parent's death, several thousand people contacted Tony Stark claiming to be his family each year. Pepper Potts took the time to painstakingly sort them along with the various paternity claims. Over time, she'd devised a rather clever system, in his opinion. "Fakers." "Real, but only looking for money." "Real, but only looking to punch you in the face." "For Real." That last designation, however, was sorely lacking in any candidates. Tony made a mental note as he thought of Kitten sitting at a family reunion to single handedly locate all of his family if they got out of this mess, slug each and every one of them square in the jaw, and, then, buy them a round to hear their life's story over. Family, even the family that only cared about money, somehow seemed infinitely better than Kitten's companionship.

Kitten dropped that line of bickering rather quickly and pointedly. "So, who's Pepper?"

Tony could have kicked himself. "No one."

"Couldn't be no one if you're crying over her," Kitten observantly pointed out in clear self satisfaction. She pressed, obviously enjoying touching such a definite nerve in retaliation for her precious but currently halved book, "So, what? Girlfriend? Wife? BDSM sex slave? Secret love-child that even the paparazzi and the_ Inquirer _haven't found out about? Spill it."

He shifted his weight uneasily, barking, "Drop it."

"Oh, come on. Inquiring minds are _dying _to know," Kitten crooned in her most tempting voice. "Who is she?"

"No one," Tony growled, surprised at the feral darkness to his own voice, sharp and cold in a way he rarely ever heard from himself.

Kitten snorted from where she lie across the cell. "Aw, don't want to talk about it? Not up to sharing today?"

"Kitten. Shut. The. Fuck. Up."

Now,_ that_ startled Tony himself. Kitten had been going to the jugular of their verbal sparring, even if she didn't realize it. The assassin had merely been going for the one thing that seemed to bother Tony the most, much as he had settled into attacking her for the book. And, just as Tony had done to her, Kitten had managed to root out the one way to truly irk her unwilling companion in the worst possibly way. She had just wanted revenge, petty and simple, and Tony had to admit to himself that he had deserved it. In fact, ever since the book had been split right down the spine, Tony had been waiting for Kitten to take her opportunity to hurt him as much as he had accidentally hurt her in destroying the book. He just hadn't expected himself to react so sharply in return. There was a vicious anger and a roughness to his voice that just wasn't Tony Stark, nor was it really Tony Stark to swear. She'd gotten him bad.

"Fine. Suit yourself, dickhead."

With that, Kitten gave a quick grunt and went silent. He heard the sounds of her moving in the dark, presumably rolling back over to return to her slumber. Tony bitterly thought of the shadowrunner grinning in the dark at her own, small victory over him. He imagined her relishing the thought of goading him into a rage. Yet, within moments, her breathes became low, steady, and even, the respiration of someone who had slipped back to sleep, leaving Tony to his jumbled, disorganized thoughts. Tony sighed as she did, feeling a tension melt away from him as she did.

Tony let his head rest against the cool wall behind him. He found that, if he really focused and spent the time to allow his eyes to adjust, even the meager light of the small leds from the security cameras on the other side of the polymer wall was enough to make out basic shapes in the dark. Sure enough, after a time, when Tony peered into the dark, he could just barely spy the prone form of Kitten on the floor. He couldn't tell if it was her back to him, or if she had nestled her head down. Tony sighed to himself at the stillness of her, wondering how she could sleep through the night every night before recalling that, between the two of them, Kitten was the one who regularly came back from whatever they did to her looking near warmed over to death.

Tony wondered how long it had been since they'd been down there, in the darkness. He had been trying to make sense of the time, to try to make the days. Sadly, the only real measure of time was the trials they had been through, and some of those Tony could only partially recall in a drug blurred haze. The pain and the medications made it hard to accurately remember things in any detail, let alone enough clarity to sort out how long it had actually been.

He glanced over to the clump of shadow that was Kitten and sniffed to himself. The calvary. She had said she was waiting for the "fucking calvary." Some calvary. No one was coming for them. Not Rhodes. Not S.H.I.E.L.D. And least of all Jonas or Stane, the traitorous bastards that put them in that mess. Whatever calvary Kitten was waiting for sure as hell wasn't coming. It was a fact the girl would have to face sooner or later.

Tony turned his head to the side, glancing to the door and to the electronic lock there. He'd been working with Jonas so long now, daring the impossible when it came to hacking that it had just never hit him before. Tony licked his lips with anticipation. It was an electronic lock, after all. A tiny computer. He'd been so dumb not to see it before, so blinded by the situation. There was the physical lock there, but, even if he couldn't figure that problem out, maybe Kitten had some trick up her sleeve to handle that.

Tony shifted and slipped across the floor, crouching on his side of the door and focusing intently on the lock. It took a moment for his mind to find the string of code dangling there, but, as he did, the tiny node of information opened like a flower before him. It wasn't complex, bending and twisting to his will in no time at all. It only required a small verification before releasing the heavy bolts. At first, Tony tinkered with the code here and there, trying to find the right string to release the door to no avail. He'd learned some from Jonas, but not nearly enough just yet to make any difference. However, a small plan formulated in his mind. All he had to do was wait patiently, as patiently as Kitten waited for whatever her calvary was, only his plan would actually work.

Tony slunk back to his corner and curled up to drift to sleep, a very small, drawn, and plotting smile spreading across his face.

xxxx

At the very same moment that Tony slipped back to dreams of rescue, safety, and blessed escape, Pepper Potts had something entirely different on her mind. Her thoughts were focused entirely upon cool steel in her hands and shadowed forms closing in on her position. The silhouettes circled and turned, but Pepper just stood her ground. But she remained calm and collected, as cold as ice. She had all the time in the world to wait for them to come to her, make her job easier. Pepper inhaled, applied ever the slightest touch on the trigger and fired. The Walther went as she fired off rounds in quick succession emptying the clip at her unseen foes. The world yawned about Pepper as she exhaled and silence prevailed.

Someone clapped behind her, slow and approvingly. As the lights began to snap on around her, the woman couldn't resist the urge to bring the pistol up and blow nonexistent smoke from the barrel, a coy smirk upon her face. Too easy and too boring. Pepper had been at this game for what felt like months now, training and practicing. She had held the gun at first gingerly, as though a deadly viper, her motions jerky and impulsive. Now, the pistol felt at home in her grip, as welcomed as the low applause from her usual one man audience after her sessions.

Pepper ejected the clip and set it down for a fresh one. "Again, I take it?"

She didn't have to turn, didn't have to hear him speak to his unseen companion behind her; Pepper knew it would be Nick Fury even before he addressed the other man. "Mr. Mitsuhama, may I present Miss Pepper Potts."

The woman did not turn to face Mitsuhama with the respect she was certain he had become accustomed to receiving even in America. She had learned a thing of two from working with the smug, self-centered Tony Stark. Never tip your hand before you've seen theirs. Never let them have control of any matter in any situation, especially if you're about to be paying for something. Oh, yes, Tony had taught her exceedingly well, even if it had never been overtly stated. It had taken over a month to arrange this little meeting of theirs, a month of serious thought, planning, and practice at the training range located at another base entirely. And, even then, on that day, it had taken three hours to get there by plane, just enough to ensure that no one knew where they'd come from. Mitsuhama could wait just a moment longer.

"Taiga Mitsuhama," Pepper greeted carefully, keeping her voice impassive and as distant as possible. "It is a pleasure to meet you."

"I assure you, the pleasure is all yours, Potts-san," the man replied.

Pepper took a long, tense moment to study the Walther before setting it down on the table. "It could be," she admittedly, dropping her voice to a low and sultry tone as she turned about to face the rival arm's industrialist and fix him in an icy, professional gaze. "Mitsuhama-san, word of your corporate security expertise and Zero-Zone policy is fabled even here in America, land of the free and the brave."

The asian folded his arms across his chest. "I find myself flattered, Potts-san." He smirked, in an almost feral manner that didn't befit his suit and tie. "But flattery is not why you arranged this meeting, is it not?"

"I want to contract MCT Corp Sec," Pepper conceded, maintaining her glare upon him. "

Mitsuhama nodded slowly, stroking the bottom of his chin in thought. "And what, Potts-san, could you possibly offer me that I do not already have?"

Pepper handed him a small piece of paper with a number already written on it. It was more money than she could have ever dreamed of seeing in her entire life, let alone earning. Yet, there Pepper was, offering to just hand it all away, almost all of Tony's net worth after paying legal expenses, purchasing a rather lengthy list of potential supplies, and liquidating much of what he'd left to her rather quickly and quietly. It seemed a small price for his life.

However, Mitsuhama raised an eyebrow in limited reaction. "I can only surmise that you wish to contract my corporation for some enterprise you cannot handle, lending me to believe that it is... unsavory at best." He scoffed. "I can make this much money in a month. Why would I dare risk my American holdings and personal freedom for such a pathetic sum?"

Pepper smirked, cocking her head to one side like a cat with her prey in sight; she had a trump card to play, thanks in part to some rather cunningly pooled information courtesy of Nick Fury.

"Ares Industries."

The man went silent but stoic, putting up an excellent poker face, giving a small nod. "Now, _that _we can talk business over." His lips curled into a plotting smirk. "Well, Potts-san, would you care to discuss this over a nice drink? I know the perfect place."

xxxx

When they came for him, Tony was ready. He spent the morning hours carefully crafting the lines of code in his own mind, sorting out the right program and deploying it at the best possible point. After that, all Tony could do was wait and hope it would work.

No. Not hope, for Tony Stark's programs and designs never failed. Granted, they occasionally didn't work out the way he initially anticipated, but the inventor had always thought of even his setbacks as learning situations. The repulsors for his gauntlets, for example, had initially been intended merely as a flight stabilizers, yet his first firing of the prototype had demonstrated the potential of using the repulsors as a nonlethal weapon. Tony had focused on the discovery as opposed to dwelling on the bruises from his impromptu fight. He just needed to focus on what he learned from failures and use that knowledge to his advantage. This wasn't nearly as fine tuned as any of his previous projects, offering less chance of catastrophic failure, but it didn't need to be.

Tony stood and waited as the guards unlocked the tiny cell. He chanced a quick look at Kitten over his shoulder to where the girl had balled up. She just sat and ignored the approach of the heavily armed Ares-Stark corporate security team. Her eyes were glued to her half of _American Gods_, resigned to her lot in life. He frowned, knowing he could never, would never allow himself to become as tamed as even she had.

It was time. The key was in the lock and the guards on the ready. Tony's muscles tensed involuntarily as he kept his face impassive and emotionless as possible. He'd been waiting now for some time. As soon as the door opened, the inventor dropped low on his haunches and hurtled forward, throwing his shoulder into the nearest guard and knocking even the bulky and well armored man back and away in surprise. Yet Tony kept right on, until he felt the the big guard slam into the wall behind him and heard something metallic clatter to the ground. Tony blinked in surprise when he noticed the baton that had landed on the cold tiles but took his opportunity to scoop it up as he went to charge through the rest of the pack.

Tony had never wielded a baton before, not in the strictest sense of the word. He had found them to be useful on occasion in dire situations when push came to shove. Yet that didn't mean Tony had any formal skills in them. So, it was to his great surprise when the inventor managed to land a blow or two. The baton had a satisfying heft in his hands, and Tony swung like a hellion as he scrambled and ducked between startled guards. Each slam that drove home on the guards felt glorious as it hammered down the nerves in his arm, thunder rolling through his muscles. He was almost through the bundle of guards too densely clustered in too small of a hall.

He felt himself grinning madly through it all. _"Lucky day..."_

It wasn't a coherent thought, nor did it have any time to really coalesce in his mind into anything more substantial, not when something weighty crashed between his shoulder blades. Tony staggered forward, his weight thrown off by the blow. The inventor stumbled and tripped, landing on the cold ground and rolling to see that one of the guards had unslung his rifle, cracking Tony in the back and sending the prisoner down before whipping the gun about to aim it right in Tony's face.

"Drop it."

It was an order, but it sounded less like it had been intended for Tony Stark, millionaire inventor and Ironman, and more intended for Spot, the dog that decided to steal its master's best slippers. The guard growled it at Tony, glaring with cold eyes that spoke volumes as to how they saw Kitten and Tony. The two captives were nothing but animals to the guards. Nothing. They were wild beasts that deserved their fate and the darkness of that place.

At first, Tony just froze, but, when he didn't immediately comply, the guard brought the rifle about once more and brought it smashing down onto Tony's cheek with a controlled ferocity. Lightning sparks flashed in the man's vision as white hot pain flared in his cheek. The guard brought the muzzle about again, aiming it right in Tony's face in a heartbeat once more. Startled by the impact, Tony let the baton slip from his fingers as the fight drained out of him. The guard kept his aim on their captive as he kicked the baton away.

Behind him, Tony could hear a soft, yet approaching and utterly rebuking applause, sarcastic in its speed and tone. He let his head slump back onto the hard tile so he could peer, upside down at whoever it was that approached. As Tony did, rough hands reached down and hauled the inventor to his feet so he could stare in the face of his audience, one Obadiah Stane, who looked rather cross at that particular moment.

"Tony, Tony. You've forced my hand."

Despite the sudden chill in the air from those words, despite the agony flashing through the side of his face from what could have very well been a broken cheek bone, Tony couldn't help but smile vaguely at Stane. Tony had him beat. He knew it; Obadiah just didn't know it yet. But he would soon.

_"Worked like a charm."_

.

**XXXX**

**Author's Notes: **Yeah, s'been a while, but I has excuses! Good ones! Firstly, I went to Otakon. Then, I got to working on some things aside from this, including a little ditty with _100 Bullets_. And, as promised, I've been working on streamlining Kitten's history... so I hope you guys are prepared to find out some things about our pet mercenary eventually!!


	26. User ID

**WARNING: **As promised, the history of Kitten, part 1! However, this is a big warning. I'm not usually a writer to put warnings at chapter heads, but you're getting two in row, and this one is kind of important. If you cannot handle the subjects of **child abuse**__especially that of a sexual nature, you really should **stop reading right now**_**. **_You have been warned.

**DUMPSHOCK - USER ID**

"You couldn't have just behaved, could you, Tony?"

Obadiah Stane followed like as skulking wolf as his guards dragged the body of Tony Stark up to one of the labs and unloaded him into a chair before shackling him down. He wanted to argue, but a part of Tony couldn't. He knew he couldn't, even if he could gather himself back together from the brutal, mind numbing blow of the rifle butt to his swelling cheek. Not now. Now, he was outnumbered and outgunned. Tony had always been an impulsive and reckless individual, but never suicidal by nature. Any struggle, any fight now would just end in more misery for him in the long haul, especially when he'd left his own, little present back at the cell. For now, Tony allowed himself to languish in the daze and the sweet satisfaction of a job potentially well done, even if it had ended with a possibly broken cheek bone that even the great Tony Stark could not have anticipated in his plans.

"You just couldn't leave well enough alone and just go alone with the program."

Tony grinned. "Never could teach an old dog new tricks."

"With the proper reinforcement, you can," the older man insisted in an almost sinister voice.

The satisfaction melted away, when Obadiah prowled before him. The older man wore a grim frown upon his face, almost stern and absurdly fatherly, complete with his arms folded across his chest. Tony half expected Stane to scold him for doing something bad before ordering him to his room without dinner. Something about that drew forth a preposterous, almost delirious cackle from Tony as he shook his head. When Obadiah's frown intensified into a deep scowl, the reaction only served to amuse Tony further, and the inventor forced himself to laugh now.

"Is this funny to you?" Obadiah asked in a tone that demanded an obeisance Tony Stark would never give him.

Tony continued smirking even as he shook his head. "You wouldn't get the joke."

"Try me."

Stark sighed heavily but masked it by dropping his feigned laughter to a low and throaty chuckle. "Just you, Obi. Just you." Tony glanced up, his eyes wild through dark locks. "Still trying to be my dad?"

"Wouldn't matter if I tried. You wouldn't listen, would you?" Obadiah accused in a feral voice.

"You're not my father," Tony snarled before snorting. "Even Dad couldn't control me. What makes you think you could ever keep me on a short leash?"

"You're worse than Kitten," the older man replied with a smirk, leaning over Tony menacingly and drawing dangerously near as he confessed in a barely audible hiss, "But we reined her in, didn't we?"

Tony bristled suddenly at the thought with an icy shiver. Kitten was a ruined, shattered creature, somehow, polarized into a ruthless mercenary by day and broken little girl by nightfall. Tony could still hear her whimpers echoing in his ears dredged up from her nightmares. He shuddered at lingering mystery of what had happened to forge such a person and the horrible fact that Obadiah admitted it.

"What did you do to break her?" Tony demanded, glaring right at Stane defiantly.

Obadiah gave a patronizing shrug of his shoulders. "Everyone has their price, Tony. You, of all people, should know that."

Stane stepped back from him and turned to the cabinets; Tony trembled in a flaring rage. "How old was she?"

"Oh, I take it your new friend getting to you?" Obadiah chirped over his shoulder at his captive audience.

"She was sixteen, wasn't she?" Tony hissed darkly.

Obadiah shrugged as he took something from one of the drawers and slipped it into his pocket. "She was sixteen, but she was deadly already." He turned to Tony, and, much to the inventor's horror, the older man took a scalpel and sliced down the scrub top, leaving a long opening at the man's chest and exposing the pale blue glow of the arc reactor. "She had already killed two people before Ares got to her, or didn't you know that already."

Tony trembled and quaked in fear as Obadiah eyed the arc reactor nestled in his chest, his mind reeling with the possibility of sharing a cell with a murdering witch. "Liar."

"Oh, it's true. You can ask her if you want. Her stepfather, and some kid." Obadiah took a syringe from his pocket and swiftly, expertly injected the clear contents into Tony's arm, sending a sudden warmth down his veins.

When Obadiah's nimble fingers released the catches to the reactor that locked the thing into the metal socket, Tony tensed instinctively, knowing and dreading exactly what would come after that. His hands balled into tight, white-knuckled fists as Obadiah turned the reactor about in the socket to unscrew it. One small tug, and it would be out and gone. Tony's stomach flip-flopped at the memory of what it would feel like after a quick jerk as the shards of metal in his body resumed their deadly course towards ripping apart his heart from the inside out, even as the rest of his muscles went weak and refused to respond to his mind's shrieking protests.

Obadiah let out a contrived sigh. "I had thought I wouldn't have to resort to this, Tony, that you could both behave and yield results without such dramatic measures."

"Wha... are you doin'?" Tony slurred in horror and fear as the world blurred.

Obadiah smiled and pulled the reactor out, taking it carefully by the leads to leave the electromagnet at the base this time; he even winked right in Tony's pale face as darkness enclosed on the inventor. "Shortening your leash."

xxxx

Consciousness returned slowly after an indeterminate time along with an odd confusion and a dull ache in Tony's chest. He floated into a watery, faded world, accompanied only by a white fog. No, not alone, for a black blob also inhabited the floating world with him. Tony blinked, dispelling the blurriness and bringing everything back into intense and sharp focus. The cold chill of tile beneath him, hard and almost bruising upon his weary body. The antiseptic snap to the air even deep in his lungs. The girt in the corner, still ignoring him in favor of a tattered, ruined copy of a paperback book.

Tony had been set upon his side in the cell which had caused a throbbing pain in his shoulder from lying upon for however long they had left him. He threw out a wobbly, unsteady arm, still feeling the numbing effects of whatever sedative Obadiah had given him. It took far too much effort than the man felt should have been necessary, but Tony pulled himself together long enough to shove off of the icy tiles. It wasn't much, but it felt somehow comforting to flop over and onto his back from his side.

Something called in Tony's ear, singing sweetly to him, welcoming him. The program. He closed his eyes and let the program speak to him, to tell him what it had learnt. The access codes. His attempted escape had been another ruse, just one more in a long string to prove to both Stane and to himself that he wasn't broken, wasn't tamed like Kitten. It had all been to keep attention from the electronic lock as his planted program worked to collect and cache data. Tony smiled meekly to himself in exhaustion as he committed the access codes to memory. It had worked after all.

Yet, a sinking horror set in shortly after his small victory when Tony actually stayed there for a moment. He felt a weight upon his chest, thick but somehow light at the same time, and all too horribly familiar. Tony's hand clawed up and along his ribcage to his sternum to locate the source of the weight, to explore it and understand it without having to actually look at it and face it. His hands found something round, thin, and long, with a plastic coating. Cords. There were two of them. Tony rolled them between his fingers and concluded them to be electrical in nature. His hand fell to the ground. He didn't need to paw about any further to know, nor did he need to look. His arc reactor was gone, and, as promised, Obadiah had put him on a leash, most likely a very short one at that.

After a moment, Tony forced himself to look down and to see what had become of him. He'd been dressed in coveralls now, in the same, obtrusive and practically day-glow prison orange. The coveralls were buttoned up to the top, but two cords snaked down under the clothing. Hesitantly, Tony reached with shaking hands to loosen the top buttons down to the reactor. The man held his breath for but an instant before actually cracking open the fabric to see the empty socket in his chest and the cables that ran down to the electromagnet. Tony followed the cables to where they ran through the slot in the door and out into the corridor, away from the cell, tethering the inventor to the place.

Tony shivered and rolled onto his other side, curling his arms about himself, hugging himself from the chill in the air, the fear in his heart, and the creeping depression that sank its claws into him. Obadiah had put him on a short leash indeed. Now, Tony could only go where they wanted him to go and when they did. The access codes were useless now without an arc reactor to keep him alive for very long. The last time it had been taken from him had been far too close of a call, so close that Tony could not tell how long he could survive anymore without something holding the deadly shrapnel in place.

"Ah, someone's finally alive over there?"

Tony shook his head at Kitten's question, not really wanting to answer her, not caring anymore. What was the point, really, in fighting her now? Tony let out a shuddering breath as he remained there, still and facing the wall. He balled up tighter, coiling upon himself. He dimly heard Kitten shifting her weight behind him and approach, but Tony didn't want to face her, didn't want to argue again, not now that the arc reactor had been taken.

"Ignoring me now?" she inquired, her voice raising a tone in piqued curiosity as well as burning malice for the inventor.

"Leave me alone, Kitten," Tony grunted as he drew his arms closer about himself.

Kitten's toe dug into his shoulder, and the girl leaned back, dragging Tony by her foot onto his back again. "Look at me, you sonovabitch when I talk to you." He winced at the light about them, but Kitten knelt over him, her hand reaching down to take his chin. "Look at me, you bastard."

"Kitten..." he growled deeply.

The girl sneered, drawing close to his face, so close that Tony could smell the faint smokiness that seemed to constantly linger over Kitten. "How does it feel to be someone else's pet? Huh?"

Tony looked up into her eyes to draw hurl as witty of a comeback as he could muster at her, but he noticed something, something strange. The girl bore and odd expression upon her face, written in her features. She looked utterly pissed, her teeth clenched and muscles tensed. Yet her eyes spoke of the lies written there. Confusion swirled over Tony as he peered into those eyes of hers. There was doubt in those eyes of hers, a sort of sorrow. Perhaps there was hesitance there? Tony furrowed his brow, unsure of what to make of the uncharacteristic softness to hidden beneath the sharpness of her gaze and, dare he think, concern therein.

"Humiliating, isn't it? Being someone else's bitch?" Kitten snapped and yelled, spitting right in his face.

Finally, Tony breathed in both defeat and agitation. "What did I ever do to you?"

"You honestly don't still expect me to believe that line, do you?" Kitten questioned venomously, jerking her head from side to side but not meeting his gaze beneath her. She almost snorted. "Ridiculous." The girl shook her head solemnly, chuckling to herself as her gaze followed the lines of cables to where they ran to his chest. "Aurelius and Stane are going to kill us both, and you're still pushing that pathetic line. Absolutely ri-fucking-diculous."

"If what you say is true, and we are going to die, then just cut the crap and tell me already," he heaved beneath her.

The girl drooped, wilting and slouching away from him now with a deep breath as her gaze slid along the lines of the electrical cords that now kept Tony's electromagnetic functioning, crumbling in her own way. "I can't tell you."

Something frayed in Tony's soul, snapping from a tension he had been pushing down for so very long. "Get off your fucking high horse, Kitten." Tony's blood bubbled and boiled anger, and he sighed bitterly. "I'm sick and tired of all you people playing these sick games." It was the truth; whatever this new game was, Tony had tired of it already between his already brimmed annoyance and the raw shock of having his life expectancy cut horrifically short by the theft of his arc reactor. "Just tell me."

"I can't _just_ tell you," Kitten finally lifted her sight to meet his, her eyes glistening and begging at the same time, pleading with him to ask her in a way that Tony didn't yet understand. "I have to _show _you."

"Whatever," the mann shrugged.

Kitten inched across the ground once more to kneel beside his prone form. The girl seemed to tremble as she leaned close to him, drawing in a pregnant breath, full of eerie mystery and intrigue. She seemed somehow ancient for a moment beneath her youthful features, tired and worn beyond her years. Gently, almost hesitantly, Kitten pressed her forehead to his. He felt her shiver through the tender contact.

"Are you sure, Tony Stark?"

Something about her words made the blood in Tony's heart instantly freeze, running icy cold through his veins with a wintery snap. Kitten had spoken in a way the man had never heard from her, never expected from the shadowrunner. Her voice held a child-like innocence and trepidation that could not be imitated, as though Kitten were truly afraid of something in this world. And she had called him by his name. Not a profanity or any of the snide pet names the girl had saddled him with over the course of their sadistic little cat-and-mouse games and sparring matches. This wasn't Kitten. This was Amatista, the _real _girl. The effect unnerved Tony to no end, but he nodded, his throat and mouth suddenly too dry utter the words lodged there.

Kitten closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, taking in his scent. As she exhaled, her scent filled his nostrils. Tony breathed it intently, feeling something there. She smelt of fever and tinder, as though her body were primed for fire at any time. And feathers? There lingered an odd sort of after taste to the aroma, but a pleasant one that danced along the palette. It reminded Tony of campfires in ancient forests, hastily erected along the lonely paths where wild beasts and old gods still roamed in the darkest and deepest of nighttime shadows. He let his mind wander to that distant place as both breathed one another's smell like wild cats.

Something pressed at his mind with a faint, vaguely electric tingle. It wasn't invasive, like a migraine or any drug that would have a lasting effect of its own. No, this felt far different than any alcohol or narcotic that Tony had ever imbibed. This felt more like a feathery tickle, a mild hum, comforting and welcomed oddly. A softness snaked about his brain and nestled there, a kitten curling up to the warmth of his body and purring as it placed its head down to sleep.

Kitten whispered something in his ears in a lilting sort of way and in a hushed breath meant only for his ears. "For when the time comes for the Phoenix to die, it lays two eggs, one white and one black. From the white egg hatches the Phoenix-bird its self. What hatches from the black egg?"

The world slipped away from Tony, pulling from him the cell and back to a floating world. Kitten fell away from him, her touch drifting from his forehead.

However, Kitten's words met Tony's ears distantly. "No one knows."

The world went black for a heartbeat before settling into a strange overlay.

xxxx

_He is Amatista Labropoulos, and he is five years old. But nobody calls him Amatista. His mother calls him her "Little Ama." His father calls him Barbie, but not for the doll. Although, his mother thinks it is for the toy. He likes it when his father calls him Barbie, because it's for the stories they tell. If his mother knew, she would probably kill her father, but they share their stories anyway in the dark with a flashlight before he gets tucked in for the night. It's their little secret._

xxxx

Tony wrenched himself from Kitten's hold and scrambled back and away from her. Her touch had been ripped from him by the sudden motion, but the image didn't leave him, nor did the feeling. She did this to him, somehow. She turned Tony into herself somehow. His stomach turned, lurching within him from the overlap of the rich memories and the barren reality of the cell. The girl stared at him with solemn, wide eyes, haunted in a way.

"Kitten..."

xxxx

_His mother, his father, and he live in a beautiful house by the beach in Savannah. They used to live in Atlanta, but that was so long ago, he can't remember it. Sometimes, his father tells him about Atlanta, but he only remembers Savannah and the beach._

xxxx

Tony screwed his eyes shut tightly. He had never been to Savannah, Georgia, in his entire life. And, yet, somehow, he had. He knew the white dunes of Tybee Island, the way it warmed to the sun and shimmered in the summer heat. He knew the refreshingly cool water lapping along the beach and the perfect, spiraling shells plucked lovingly from the sand. He remembered the lighthouse rising from land and the way the land seemed to grey in the distance from the very top. He felt the faint kiss of the morning fog upon his cheeks, damp but wonderful. No. Kitten had. She'd planted this in him with her mind. She had been there, digging her toes in the sand, dancing in the shallows, collecting seashells, and climbing to the top of the Tybee Island Lighthouse.

Yet, just as much as Tony knew she had, Tony felt the memories as clearly as though he had actually experienced them, and as thought he had just been there yesterday.

xxxx

_On warm, clear mornings, before school, they go down to the water. On days when his father feels strong, the man sits him atop his shoulders and they walk down to the beach to watch the waves roll in. He loves going to the beach and running with the seagulls. He likes to close his eyes and pretend to be one of the birds. He wants to fly with them, into the sky, and, on good days, when he tells his father this, his father picks him up and "flies" him through the air. On bad days, when his father looks tired, the man just closes his eyes and nods at his Princess Barbie as though lost in a dream. But, when his father makes him fly, he sometimes feels like, if he just reaches out far enough, he can touch the sky and the clouds with the birds. His father tells him that, one day, they will both fly with the birds._

xxxx

"Kitten, what is this?" he gagged and blurted out.

The girl gave a sad shrug, turning her gaze away and slinking back to the far corner of the cell. She slumped back against a wall and drew her knees up to her chin, hugging herself like a little girl. It was the girl Tony had never seen before under the shadowrunner and her hardened exterior, the creature that had once been Amatista Labropoulos. But, what he still didn't understand was why now? Why that moment?

She went icy cold and distant, her eyes burning with cold embers.

xxxx

_Then, they walk to school hand in hand, sometimes skipping. The other children are jealous of him because all their fathers work all day, while his father stays home and plays with him. They don't know that his father is very sick and goes to the doctor very often. But he doesn't care. He gets to spend almost all day with his father, and the two of them pretend to be characters from the stories. He loves being Princess Barbie, and he loves it when his father plays her loyal, giant dog, Martin Tenbones, crawling around on all fours and growling like a great, big puppy._

_He sits in an impossibly large lap as they nestle together in a bed covered in pink blankets and a sea of stuffed animals; a booming but friendly voice asks in his ear, "So, Princess Barbie, what story would you like to hear tonight?"_

_He grins from ear to ear. "Martin Tenbones!"_

_His father laughs in a keening tenor. He can't remember his father's face, but he remembers his father's voice. He listens to that voice every night until he lulls in his father's lap. It is the only thing that remains of his father in his mind, and he cherishes every small word he can recall of his father's bedtime stories. And the story of Martin Tenbones is one of his favorites, because it is where their nicknames came from. He giggles every time his father gets to the part where Martin Tenbones appears in the middle of New York City, despite having heard it several times._

_"But you've heard that story a million times!"_

_"But I like that story!" he replies, poking out his tongue at his father. "Plus, I like when you make the funny sounds!" His father always makes the best voices when telling his tales; he pouts and makes a sad face. "Please?"_

_"Alright, alright. Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess named Princess Barbie."_

_He listens intently as his father speaks, fighting his body as his eyelids drooped shut. It isn't until far later in his life, when he finally explored the books of his father's collection before he realizes just how edited the story of Martin Tenbones and Princess Barbie is. He finds the story to be a part of Neil Gaiman's _A Game of You_, and the original is far darker than the version his father shares. In the real story, there is even a pair of lesbian lovers struggling to cope with an unplanned pregnancy and a rather bloody scene where Thessaly the witch cuts off a man's face, nails it to a wall along with his tongue, and proceeds to hold a conversation with her victim. _A Game of You_ is far from a children's tale. He still smiles at the thought of his father's watered down version in which the lesbians are "good friends" and Thessaly doesn't kill the man but merely gives him a "stern talking to." In his father's version of the story, Martin Tenbones lives._

xxxx

"It's my life, Tony Stark. The life you took from me." Kitten sniffed hotly, waving a hand capriciously at the cell about them and the clear wall that boxed them in. "My life before all of this... this shit."

xxxx

_He is six years old, and he is sitting in a hard, plastic chair that hurts his backside. He has been here before, several times in fact. His father had been having sleep overs at the hospital, and there haven't been any stories in several months. He comes with his mother everyday, but he sits in the chair waiting everyday for his mother to come out and for them to go back home without his father. His mother won't let him see his father. She's afraid, and he knows it. But she is coming for him now, and her eyes are pink around the edges._

_She kneels before him and tries to explain. "Ama..." She trails off when he doesn't answer his own mother. "Ama... " She swallows; it's hard for his mother to control her tears in front of her only child. "Ama, I need you to listen to me and listen very carefully." He nods in a tiny, jerky motion, and his mother strokes his long, black hair with her pale hand. "Ama, Daddy's sick. He's very, very sick."_

_"But he'll get better," he argues. "He always gets better."_

_His mother shakes her head solemnly, and tears spill down her cheeks. "No, not this time, Ama."_

_"No! He has to get better!"_

_There is a man in a white coat kneeling in front of him. He knows that this man is a doctor, that he helps people, but he can't be. If this man were really a doctor, he would help his father. Doctors save people all the time. And her mother is a nurse. Why can't they save his father? The doctor tries to explain that his father has something bad, very bad, in him. It is eating his father from the inside out. He cries at that. The doctor and his mother wait a minute, and, then, they each take one of his tiny hands to show him to his father._

_His father isn't anything like the man who read him stories at night. Her father is funny, and big, and strong, and happy. This man is weak, pale, still, and sickly, coughing when his breathing gets too hard. He shakes his head, but his father holds out a hand and calls to him._

_"Barbie..."_

_He can't just run away when his father calls him by their special name. "Daddy." He runs to his father's bed and buries his head in the man's bony chest, sobbing. "Daddy, you have to get better. You just have to!"_

_The man smiled and ruffled her hair. "I can't, Barbie. I'm tired." He can't understand, but his father explains, "I've been fighting this for too long, Barbie. I've got nothing left."_

_"Daddy..." he whimpers between crying jags, almost hyperventilating._

_Finally, her father speaks again, softly and surely. "Barbie, I'm going to be going away soon." Her father coughs and settles back in his bed, like he has no strength left to him, but the man smiles as best he can for his one and only daughter. "But I won't be going far. I'll always be with you, watching over you."_

_And he believes his father. _

_Even at the funeral, he believes his father will take care of him. _

xxxx

Tony felt a tear stream down his cheek, but he knew it wasn't his own. His body trembled and quivered like a leaf. Tony rolled on to his side to see Kitten, but she had turned her head away from him. The girl stiffened brusquely in her spot, reached down idly to take up her half of the book. Her hands flipped through a few of the pages, but the girl quickly gave up at that thought. Tony could see that, for just as difficult as it seemed for him to focus considering the crushing grief twisting at his heart, a sorrow that was never his, Kitten couldn't either. And, it made sense to him somehow. The gripping depression, the sorrow, the tears, they were hers.

Or, at least, they had been hers somehow.

Tony's own heart contracted in sympathy. He found it so odd to think of her in commiseration. She had been his enemy, out for blood against him. Yet, she had been a little girl at one point, completely mundane and normal. And, just like he had, Amatista had lost her father. Only while he had lost both of his parents, her loss had been at a far earlier age than his.

xxxx

_He is seven years old and wearing a pretty, white, lace dress that makes him look like a real princess. It is supposed to be a special day, but it isn't for him. It's a wedding. There are flowers everyone, and loads of happy people congratulating his mother. They are telling him to be happy, because he's about to get a new father, but there will only ever be one father for him._

xxxx

The remembered anxiety was almost palpable and gripping for Tony in the present. It twisted over him and ensnared Tony like a thousand crushing vines. They twirled about him, curling about his muscles and dragging him into a paranoid abyss.

xxxx

_They are in the dressing room when he asks his mother, "Mommy, don't you love Daddy?"_

_"I do," his mother answers, handing him a basket with flower petals._

_He is confused. "Then why are you marring Henry?"_

_His stepfather will always be Henry in his mind. "Father" and "Daddy" are terms saved only for the man who died a year ago, only to be so quickly replaced by loud, gross, ugly Henry. He's annoying, and he won't read to him. His stories are boring and bland, and Henry doesn't even seem to like him. Henry smells bad sometimes, like sweaty dog and old beer. Henry calls him Amatista, and he instantly hates Henry intensely._

xxxx

A picture formed of Henry in Tony's mind, and he instantly felt revolted. Henry was everything Kitten thought of him. He was a fat, loud mouthed, brash, profane alcoholic. And, somehow, Tony instinctively knew that this awful, vile Henry person was the source of Kitten's rather extensive vocabulary of creative swear words. He is everything slimy and greasy condensed into one, male form, potbellied and with thinning hair in an untidy comb-over. In her corner, Kitten tensed, her muscles clenching up involuntarily as the memory and the impression washed over Tony. The motion caught the inventor's notice, even under the memories impressed upon his psyche. She seemed pale somehow, nervous.

"Kitten... what's happening?" Tony forced himself to ask her, struggling even to find the strength of voice and the consciousness to whisper. When she didn't answer, Tony fought to make his throat and mouth work once more. "Kitten?"

The girl shook her head tersely. "It's already happened."

xxxx

_"Call him Dad, call him Daddy, call him anything but Henry," his mother pleads as she adjusts her hair before growing still and placing a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Ama, you wouldn't understand. When you get older, you will."_

_"I'm old now," he argued. _

_His mother beamed proudly and poked his nose playfully. "Yes, but not old enough yet." The woman smiles sadly, and a sort of wistful mist appears in her eyes. "I loved your father, but I'm lonely. I've spent too much time crying. I want to be happy, and Henry makes me very happy." _

_"But, don't you miss Daddy?"_

_"I do," his mother murmurs. "But your father is gone."_

_"No, he's not!" He screams with an irrational rage that can only belong to a child. "He told me! He said he's always there, watching us."_

_Her mother frowns in that way mothers do, a way that ends all arguments or leads to a quick, firm spanking. "That's enough."_

_He opened his mouth to argue once more, and, when he walks down the aisle before his mother in a few moments, he is crying heavily. The wedding goers think they are tears of joy for his mother and his new father, but they couldn't be any more wrong. They're tears for his father and for his aching behind from a sharp and undeserved spanking. Later, when his nightmare begins, he wonders why he didn't keep arguing that day at the wedding, or why, when the priest asked if anyone had any objects, why he didn't jump up and down and scream like he really wanted to._

_Four months later, they don't live in the house by the beach. After the wedding, Henry brought them to a place called Alpharetta, to live together in a big house overlooking a pretty river, but it is not a house filled with love and warmth, not like the little house by the beach. The river sliders lazily behind the house, and he can see the dark waters from his bedroom window through the knotted branches of the tall magnolia tree when he sits up at night. He tries not listen for footsteps, to just watch the water drifting by. He wishes he can just float down the river, to wherever the current takes, anywhere away from the house with no love. He begs his mother to take him home to the bungalow by the beach, but his mother tells him it is no longer their home. Another family lives in that house, and the big house by the river is their home now._

_He has noticed something about Henry over the four months. Whenever his mother isn't home, Henry is staring at him weirdly. It makes him uncomfortable. When he tells his mother, she poo-poos him and says it is just his imagination. When the new hospital his mother works at makes her go from working the day to working through the night, he finds out it is not his imagination._

_He is seven years old. Henry has waited a long time. He knows this. Late at night, when his mother is at the hospital, he can hear Henry outside his bedroom door. The man has loud footsteps, not like his father. Henry paces just beyond the door, and he draws the blankets up over mouth and chin, even though it is very hot in Georgia, hiding from Henry. However, after a time, Henry always thunders down the stairs and into the den where he drinks and falls asleep in one of the chairs. He hates it when Henry does this, because, sometimes, Henry throws the books around, books that belonged to his father. Henry has done this for a year._

_But, tonight it different. Tonight, after the first few lengths of pacing, the footsteps stop just outside of his door. There is a long pause as he listens for Henry and hopes the man just goes away. But Henry doesn't just go away. The door creaks open, sending a shaft of blinding light in from the hall, and his heart stops. Henry is standing there, but he is just a black silhouette holding a nearly empty bottle in one hand, swaying slightly._

_After more than a year, Henry has finally come for him in the night._

_In the morning, just before dawn, he climbs out his window, onto a nearby branch of the magnolia, shimmies down the tree, and goes down to the river and watches the birds flying. He thinks of what Henry told him. _

_"All good little girls do what their fathers say. You don't want to be a bad little girl, do you, Amatista?"_

_The memory of Henry's words sends him reeling; he throws up on the embankment and cries for all its worth until he has nothing left in his stomach and no tears to shed. He can't understand. His father promised to watch him, to keep him safe and protect him. His father didn't even protect him from Henry. He cries and heaves, but nothing comes out anymore until he can do nothing but sit, stare, and tremble._

_And, once that's over, and he looks up, there is a pretty, red bird staring at him. When he tries to approach it, the bird does not fly away. The red and orange bird sings a beautiful song, and he feels a bit better. The song warms his frozen heart and stems the tears at his eyes. The bird plucks a feather from its tail and pushes it towards him. When he walks up the hill back to the house, the pain and the words are already lost, but he hums the tune wherever he goes. He hides the red feather under his bed. _

_The next morning, after it has happened again and he returns to the river, the red bird is waiting for him with its song. Every morning after it happens, he climbs down the magnolia tree when the sky turns light, and, every morning, the red bird is waiting. It makes the nearly nightly suffering mildly bearable to know the bird waits with its music sung just for him. _

xxxx

"Oh... god...Kitten..."

Tony doubled over himself, his gut lurching wildly within him. He felt those hands upon him, pawing at him perversely with a lecherous intent., even after the memory had passed and slipped back to the dark recesses of the girl's mind. He choked back a searing vile that splashed at the back of his mouth. Tony grit his teeth in an attempt to quell his violently rebelling stomach. He felt dirty and violated.

How could someone do that to a child?

The millionaire didn't know what to say or do. He had always known that such travesties occurred in the world, every day, but he had never known anyone who had endured such things. Tony had lived a privileged life with loving and caring parents who had catered to his every need and whim. He had only ever known an intense and unconditional love and concern from his family. His heart broke for the little girl that had once been Amatista Labropoulos, but the memories continued unabated.

xxxx

_He is eight, and he is sitting in the hospital for what seems like the hundredth time in his life. Only, this time, he is the patient. His arms aches and protests, but the doctor has given him both a shot and a lollipop. He knows the doctor; the doctor works with his mother. Doctor Jennings smiles and tells him the lollipop is magic and will make him feel all better in no time, but he has started reading his father's books and knows better. The shot will make his pain go away, and the lollipop will keep his mouth occupied instead of screaming. Neither the shot nor the candy can make him "feel all better." Neither will erase the painful memories of what happens in the dark of the night, nor the knowledge that it will happen again and again._

_Nothing makes him feel all better anymore except the red bird by the river. At night, when Henry comes into his room reeking of whiskey, he clutches the feather tightly in his tiny hands until it is wrinkled and almost ruined. When his stepfather leaves, he balls up with the feather held to his face until it stinks from his sweat, tears, and fear. In the morning, he hides the feather and goes down to the river to listen to the red bird sing just for him. _

_Doctor Jennings wants to know what happened to his arm, and he explains only so far. He tells the doctor that he was trying to get to the river to see the birds by going out the window ledge so he could climb down the magnolia tree. When he reached for the branch by his window, he slipped and fell all the way down to the hard ground. He doesn't tell the doctor he was trying to get to the birds so he could try to fly far, far away from the cold house by the river where there is no love and where he cannot sleep through a single night when his mother works. He can't tell Doctor Jennings that he was trying to get away before Henry came for him in the night. He does accidentally tell the doctor about the red bird._

_Later, at home, his mother and his stepfather are both yelling at him in the den. How could he do such a thing? Over an imaginary friend? He is too old to have imaginary friends. He should be playing with the other little girls on the street with their Barbie dolls, or going to Girl Scouts, like any normal little girl, not chasing a fake bird. He sobs and tells them that the red bird is real. He races up to his room to find the glorious scarlet feather that has gotten him through this long year, but the feather had become nothing more than a plain, ordinary, and ratty goose quill crushed too many times in tiny hands. He falls to the floor and cries desperately until he is sent to bed. Henry doesn't come for him that night. _

_That morning, as he peers out his window, he spies the red bird flying away. The next day, he sits on the porch, his arm in a hard, neon pink cast, watching in misery as Henry saws the branch from the tree. He dies inside a little, but he doesn't see the red bird by the river anymore after that._

xxxx

Tony felt the cast about his wrist as though it were his own broken arm. His hand swatted at the thing but found nothing but flesh. The cast had been Kitten's and never his own, yet his arm throbbed with the pain of a broken limb that had never been his. His heart jumped into his throat. He wanted to scream, to destroy something or someone, to hold her, to comfort that little girl, but Tony knew that the child that had once been Amatista was gone and dead, leaving only the shell of a person that was Kitten.

Another memory took hold of him.

xxxx

_He is fourteen. He is back in the hospital again, sitting alongside Henry in the waiting area of the emergency room. He should be scared or sad, but he can't. The red bird abandoned him and took its song and feather with it. It took all his hope with it. Now, there is nothing to get him through the nights that Henry comes into his room. There isn't even the red feather. He is alone, and nothing, no one, can help him or save him from Henry._

_The police said it was an accident, but he knows better. His mother knows what happens in the dark of the night when she is at work. He'd been so very careful not to tell anyone like Henry ordered, but she'd forgotten something before work and came home to pick it up when Henry was in his room. She threw open the door, her mouth hanging open, and she ran. His mother left the house without saying a word, running. She was driving back to the hospital, in shock, when she accidentally ran a red light. Atlanta traffic, especially in Midtown, is unforgiving at best and a war zone on average. The doctors tell them that they did everything they could for her, but that his mother is in a coma. The doctors say honestly that they should hope for the best but prepare for the worst._

_Nothing happens for two weeks. For two weeks, Henry spends most of his time at the hospital with his mother, holding her hand up until she dies. They say her body just gave out. The service is a somber affair, with few people in attendance aside from her immediate family. After her funeral, he runs home to the house by the river, fetches the goose quill feather, musty and brittle after all these years. When he gets back to the cemetery, everyone else is gone but two gravediggers. He drops the feather over his mother's casket and returns home to an empty house. _

_He curls up in bed with the covers drawn up to his face and sleeps for a bit until the door slams downstairs; he prays, "Please, not again, not tonight."_

_But he knows his prayers are pointless._

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: Yeah... it's not a pretty sigh, is it? Sorry, I promise it's really important to who Kitten is and what she became post-Henry.


	27. User Profile

**WARNING: **Same warning as previous chapter. If you cannot handle the subjects of **child abuse**__especially that of a sexual nature, you really should **stop reading right now**_**. **_You have been warned. Cereally. The last chapter was bad. This is worse. This is what I was trying to kind of acclimate you guys to in earlier chapters by introducing ultraviolence and brothels. This is worse than that.

**DUMPSHOCK - USER PROFILE**

_He is fourteen, and he can't breathe. He is coughing for air, gagging on the scent of musk and cheap whiskey. He is experiencing something no child should ever go through, in what has become a routine that should never be so. He is suffocating as a heavy weight presses down upon him. He is engulfed in the all too familiar feeling of a warm body pressing against his and massive hands pawing their way through the blankets. _

_The stench of booze permeates everything, and his stepfather slurs in his ears. The alcohol on the old man's breath stings at his eyes, burning worse than the vile sensation of groping hands. His mother hasn't been in the ground for a full day, and, already, Henry is drunk again and back for him, but he is too weak to fight against someone as big and as strong as his stepfather. When hand tears away at his pajamas, he helplessly wriggles and shrieks shrilly, but Henry puts a stifling hand over his mouth while his other hand holds his wrists together above his head._

xxxx

There were tears streaming down Tony's face as he trembled now, unable to control himself. He felt both free and confined at the same time somehow, crushed by the weight of a person who he had never met in his entire life and consumed by the nightly terror of a child who no longer existed. Sweat beaded at his forehead as his muscles tensed in rage and fear while adrenaline hummed in his veins. His pulse raced as his heart pounded in his chest, drumming against his ribcage and in his ears with deafening beats. His own heart beat out death knolls for the girl, for the child Amatista. Tony's own breathes grew ragged and short, the hyperventilating gasps of terror.

Tony swallowed hard and blinked, trying to focus on the cell around him. He forced his eyes to the ground, to count tiles, but even that simple of a task proved too much for him. The memories of Amatista Labropoulos took hold on him and continued to steer him down a course of Kitten's design alone.

"It's... her fear." Tony squeezed the words out. "It's not happening. It's not real."

And, while the inventor knew his own statements to be true, that did not stop his mind from believing the memories to be true and real.

xxxx

_"No one can hear you out here, s'dun't bother."_

_As his stepfather drunkenly fumbles to unbuckle his own belt, there is a moment of panic. Henry had always been quite content to just use his hands or his mouth, or to make his stepdaughter do things for him... to him. But he has had much more to drink than usual, and, he seems to have something else in mind._

xxxx

Caught up in the alien emotions that had invaded his heart and mind, Tony hurled himself at Kitten, launching through the air and completely ignoring the cables running from the electromagnet from the arc reactor. The wires tugged at the magnet in the sunken port, but Tony couldn't feel it. All he could feel, even as he knocked the mercenary to the ground, was Henry's crushing weight over him, bearing down upon him.

"What are you doing?"

Tony reached to grab the girl by her skinny little neck and wring her by her throat for all it was worth, but Kitten moved too swiftly for him, seemingly unencumbered by the memories drifting between the two of them. She slipped from his grasp easily, too easily. Tony's hand shot out, unbidden, and grabbed her wrist, dragging the assassin back to him harshly, yanking on her arm and feeling the joint pop through her muscles.

Tony snarled as he climbed on top of her, pushing back the sudden, irrational fear he felt, Kitten's fear. "What is this?"

Kitten glared. "The truth, you arrogant, self-righteous sonovabitch."

xxxx

_When Henry forces himself between his stepdaughter's legs and into her with a stabbing, sharp pang, birds flutter on the air somewhere, and the scent of tinder fills the room. He thinks oddly of birthday cakes, of the scent of freshly blown out candles, even as his stepfather thrusts in as deep as possible. He cries in a horrible mix of terror, pain, and betrayal, his tears stinging his cheeks, but that only seems to excite Henry further. _

xxxx

The pain shot through Tony himself, in secret, womanly places that he, as a man, would never have, with a twisting pang. A distant part of his mind, perhaps the part of him that had become so entwined with Kitten's mind, dimly noted it to the be the penetration that had caused it. Tony froze, a shiver racing up his spine to accompany an agony that was never his, that was always hers.

Tony understood now, why she had hated so very to have been pinned down by him.

He scrambled back and away, still feeling the foreign trauma in his gut and between his legs, horrified, sickened. He curled up on himself, balling up as tight as possible, as tight as Amatista once had in the night in false hopes that, perhaps, it would protect her from Henry. Tony drew his knees up to his chest and hugged them with both arms, rocking slightly, but the pain went on as the past flowed through her and into him like a river.

"Make it stop, Kitten," he begged, embarrassed by the need in his voice.

She shook her head. "No."

"Kitten..."

"No," the girl replied sternly once more, averting her gaze from him, perhaps repulsed by how pathetic he looked now, reminded of how utterly weak and sniveling she must have appeared once, pleading for Henry to stop.

A part of Tony hated himself for the work that escaped his lips. "Please."

"No!" Kitten gave another shake of her head, fierce and angry. "No. You have to see this. You have to know. You have to understand."

xxxx

_He tries not to look, to turn away and send his mind somewhere else before it can happen, and, after all these years, all he can think about is the red bird. It is sitting on the edge of the bed, just over Henry's shoulder. The red bird cocks its head to one side and seems to smile almost._

_It is a desire, a wish, as fanciful as child like wishes can be. I want to be a cowboy. I want to be an astronaut. I want to be Superman, or Batman, or Wonderwoman, or whoever the flavor of the week comic hero is. It begins with a wish, a silent prayer and a building, driving need, growing from within like a volcano, heat slipping over his nerves and through his body. It has been there in him for a while now, since his father died and since they left the house by the beach. But, it really all begins with a single, tiny spark, as must truly great or truly terrible things are wont to start with. _

_When Henry jerks and bellows hoarsely, he screams as an eagle cry pierces the night and the world around them explodes in a heartbeat in a flash of fire and furious sound._

xxxx

The sound of her wings echoed in the cell even though the memory, along with the song of the eerie bird of her past. Tony glanced to Kitten, to the haze about her, red and raw. She looked distant and calm, coldly detached from what had just happened, and, yet, somehow relieved by it as her muscles began to loosen and slip to a state of relaxation.

She bore but the hint of a smile.

xxxx

_There is a lapse of time that he can't remember, including pushing his stepfather's heavy body from off of him. There is a fire, snapping and popping all around, but he is not afraid of it as he stumbles down the stairs. Maddened and awe struck at the sheer audacity of whatever has just happened to liberate him, he embraces the fire. He grabs every bottle of Henry's liquor and anything else flammable, and hurls it at the spreading flames, whooping and cheering in insane delight with each small burst adding to the inferno around him. The house by the river must burn. He is laughing deliriously and dancing amid the flames when something slams into him from behind. A neighbor. He is dragged from the house and the fire, hysterical. The next thing he knows, there are firefighters all around the house as it collapses inward on its self, and he is sitting on the cool, damp grass in the front of the house, watching as the structure collapses. _

xxxx

A laugh bubbled up in the inventor at the thought, but it was merely a choked sound of relief that the house on the Chattahoochie River existed no more. It was the delirious chuckle of hope that the terrible things that happened there need never happen again. When Tony looked to Kitten in her corner, her eyes had a mist to them, a sort of sheen and gloss. Her cheeks were red and flushed oddly.

xxxx

_He is fifteen. The court, perhaps in a stroke of pity on a child who had obviously suffered severe mental and emotional trauma, ruled Henry's death as accidental and remanded his custody to his cousin. He hasn't consciously thought of that night since, burying it deep inside his heart and locking it away, but he still dreams of the red bird and of his stepfather coming in the night for him. He sleeps with the light on. He is slowly scrapping together some vague shadow of a life. He has been living with his cousins for the last year in Marietta, reading nearly constantly the books of his father's favorite author, Neil Gaiman, almost caught up enough to pick up with his newest book, _American Gods_. It is an odd existence, but there is a life, a warmth, and a security with his cousins that he couldn't find in the house by the river. They all watch as he heads to dance and wish him a safe, happy night. He is going with Nick, who has to be the cutest boy in his class. _

_Everything is going so well until Nick takes him from the dance on a bit of a stroll in the moonlight. The school is at a large enough property to offer several secluded places to hide in. After a few unsuccessful attempts to find some privacy, he and Nick are on a cool, stone bench, kissing one another. Nick eases him down and leans over him. _

_The memory of Henry bubbles up, and he panics instinctively, gasping, "Nick, wait."_

_But Nick doesn't wait. His heart quakes and trembles in fear. When Nick reaches for the zipper at the back of his silver dress and when he can no longer control his terror and his memories, something happens. There is the distant sound of downy wings before a roaring silence. His vision reddens as eagles scream in his ears._

_"NOT AGAIN!"_

_But it's already happened. Nick stiffens over him, his eyes wide with horror or agony- he cannot tell. Nick's breaths cease suddenly, and the boy goes limp against him. Nick is dead before his body spreads over him. He is alone and, with a sudden clarity, he is terrified of himself._

_The paramedics say it was a heart attack, but he knows better. That summer, he spends every day riding the MARTA down from Marietta and into Atlanta to read and research in the libraries of UGA and Georgia Tech while his friends spend their days at the mall, wandering trendy Little Five Points, or at Six Flags Over Georgia. He devours every book he can get his hands on about birds, mythology, physics, and magic. He needs to know for certain that it can't happen again. _

_He starts sitting in on physics classes, always sneaking into the back of grand lecture halls where he can hide, listening carefully and taking precise notes. That is, until he forgets himself in Professor LeMarc's class and hands in some homework. LeMarc is surprised that a kid can do as well in his class as he does. The professor seems to like him and even helps him get credit at his high school for any pre-approved classes at Tech, and the college grudgingly agrees to teach him for free so long as he gets no actual college credit for the classes._

xxxx

The wake of the storm that had been Amatista's childhood left Tony drained, exhausted. His nerves felt frayed, his muscles shredded. His head throbbed with an aching pain, but he felt alive. He had survived it, much as she had. Yet Tony knew it couldn't have been it. No. Henry was merely the tip of the iceberg for Amatista if she were to become the assassin, Kitten.

And Obadiah had yet to walk into the picture.

Tony ground his teeth together and shifted, crawling back into his corner, as far away from Kitten as possible, but she didn't seem to care or even to notice. Instead, her gaze had slipped to the lock on the door, staring at it intently and studiously. Her eyes held a feline curiosity. The girl watched and waited for someone, something. Tony didn't know anymore.

All he knew for certain was he was tired of being Amatista Labropoulos.

xxxx

_He is sixteen when LeMarc assigns his class their project, and he picks his infamous topic. He spends all of his days researching and reading, formulating his theories until his internet searches turn up Dr. Ivy Maddox. Or, rather, Maddox somehow finds him. It happens too quickly, like magnets drawn to one another, to tell who really initiated it. Maddox is different from other people. When he explains what happened, Maddox is willing to listen with an open mind. Dr. Maddox explains why she does, and it's almost hard to believe. Maddox is working on something similar, and they share notes online, comparing. He has only just started to flesh out ideas with Maddox on how the doctor's theoretical force of Resonance applies in the world alongside his theoretical forces of Essence and Magic. _

_Professor LeMarc doesn't like his topic and begs him to pick another one, but he is adamant. LeMarc and he come to the agreement that, if he can come up with scientific data, he can continue on the project. But he and Maddox had already determined their experiments. It's only a matter of actually performing them. _

_He smiles to himself in a small victory over the professor and heads down North Avenue and across 75/85 to the Varsity for a milkshake. There, amid the chaos and clamoring of a line of servers shouting "what'll it be" over and over again, Jonas walks into his life. Jonas is young, funny, and cute. Just his type, and just his age. They talk over fries for hours and exchange phone numbers. A couple of days later, and he spies Jonas again at Tech. A day after that, it's in the library. They are becoming good friends, and he hopes more. Jonas smells of cookies and puppies somehow, and it makes him happy._

xxxx

Tony froze. Jonas. The lying, traitorous bastard. Jonas had found Kitten, hunted her down in the middle of downtown Atlanta, Georgia, amid hundreds of thousands of people. He had located her and sold her out to Obadiah Stane. And Amatista, being the young, naive girl as she was, feeling hopeful that the darker chapters of her life had closed, had walked right into Jonas's trap. She'd blissfully closed her eyes and went down to the slaughter merrily and even giggling like a schoolgirl.

A part of Tony wanted to say that Kitten, or Amatista, had brought this all upon herself, but he couldn't. He had allowed Stane to get close once before, believed that his former business partner had really been keeping both Stark's and their company's best interests at heart. He had waltzed right into betrayal just as much as she had.

And he knew now, from the flavor of Kitten's thoughts and memories, that the betrayal had stung Kitten as much as it had once hurt him.

xxxx

_He is sixteen, thinks he's met the greatest guy ever, and it's Christmas Eve. His old life and the house at the river are distant memories as he sits alone in the living room to wait for his cousins to come home from work before dinner, a brand new copy of _American Gods_, in his delicate hands, and the memories of his biological father and mother trickling through him. It is a delicious but somber sensation to be so at home, but so alone. But Jonas will be coming to dinner, too, and the thought brings a smile to his face. That is when confusion erupts in the house. He springs to his feet at the sound of shattering glass, but they are on him in a heartbeat. He screams, but something jabs his arm with a painful prick. The world swirls away, and his copy of _American Gods_ tumbles to the floor. _

_When he awakens, he is alone in a dark place, worse than his bedroom waiting for his stepfather. He cannot see. It is so dark, in fact, that he wonders if he really is awake. The dull aching and numbness in his muscles from lying on the cold, stone floor is more than enough to confirm that he is, in fact, conscious. He surveys his situation by touch alone, feeling his way through the dark until he realized he was in a small room or cell of some sort. The lights flash on with blinding radiance, and this is the place where he will spend the next three years of his life. _

xxxx

Tony glanced about the cell, taking in the details, letting the memories overlay with reality. They now occupied the very same cell. White walls. Tile floor. Clear wall. Obadiah Stane and Nicholas Aurelius had been doing this all along the entire time, even long before they decided to take Stark out of the picture. They had been using Stark Industries money and resources to fund their sick project for years, and, now, the money, his own money, that had funded that project likely still funded the place that held them now.

The man's stomach churned angrily with hot bile at the grim realization.

xxxx

_He is seventeen, and he has no name. They took that from him and saddled him, along with the others in his group with cute little code names. As the youngest, they dubbed him 'Kitten.' Jonas is there, as well, under the name of 'Asp.' And, to his great dismay, the only other person in the world who might have believed him, Ivy Maddox, is there, with the name 'Fox.' It is the first time he has met Dr. Maddox, and he desperately wishes it could have been differently. Through time, he will come to know all of them and the reasons they were brought to the dark place in the ground where there is no more sunshine or fresh air. He never knew that Jonas and Ivy Maddox could manipulate electronic information, for example. _

_They all come with a story, though. 'Ibis' is an elderly, retired air force pilot and Vietnam War veteran who could supposedly converse with animals and other people through his mind, but only wants to apologize to his son for some silly but scathing argument they had shortly before he was taken. 'Griffon' is a high school teacher who can make small illusions, but his fleeting creations cannot measure up to the woman he misses more than anything in the world and wants nothing more than to hold in his arms one last time. 'Boa' is a house wife who would have preferred to be home making further unsuccessful attempts at baking perfect deserts than there, having her brains picked apart for her supposed ability to heal people with her touch. It sounds farfetched at best, but the tests prove each of the claims right, except those regarding him, as he refuses to unleash the red bird within him ever again unless absolutely necessary._

_At first, the doctors beg and plead with him, offer him things, small luxuries and petty baubles. He trades the demonstration of a small spell and some good behavior for a new copy of _American Gods_ to read. He manages a few pages every night, savoring the companionship of Shadow and Mr. Wednesday. He sometimes whispers the words aloud and pretends he is reading with his father again, snug in big arms that hold him close as he nestles against his father's broad chest and listens to the words reverberate against his ear. _

xxxx

The inventor's eyes drifted down to the torn and halved copy of _American Gods_ on his side of the cell before slipping across the floor to Kitten's half of the book. Now that he could feel for himself the comfort, the warmth that the novel had brought her in those dark days, he understood the significance of the book. Tony felt the same, burning need to protect the novel from harm, to keep it close at his side. It bordered on insane obsession, Tony knew, even as his hand moved of its own accord to gingerly collect his half of the book and cradle it lovingly to his own chest. Yet it had been that book -and perhaps that book alone- that kept the girl going for so long, and it had become a sort of lifeline for her.

Tony's cheeks flushed with the heat of shame. He'd callously destroyed the book that had been Kitten's emotional safety blanket in a world that had done nothing but wrong her. The man had ripped it apart with an ignorant disregard that the masterpiece hadn't deserved, nor had its owner.

The man brought the book up, still hugging it close, smelling the scent of the newsprint and thinking as much as the memories would allow, of Pepper Potts on his couch, in pajamas, with a cup of cocoa and the book. He felt a thin smile upon his face at the thought, comforted by it strangely. Tony looked to Kitten, to where her fingertips idly brushed the spine of her half of the book. Tony vowed to himself that, if they ever did get out of there, he would buy both women a copy of _American Gods_, maybe even a library's worth of the book.

xxxx

_After a month, the doctors grow tired of his refusals to participate and life becomes far more difficult to bear. He does not see the others anymore. They do not allow him to go to group exercises, or socialize. He is no longer handled by people masquerading as friendly and caring. He lives in his tiny cell and receives visits from men and women hiding behind surgical masks, protective clothing, and a deep anonymity. They look upon him with cold indifference, like a lab animal that deserved their easy contempt; they do not even meet his gaze. They beat him, torture him, physically, mentally, and emotionally to coax out his magic. The tests become more strenuous by the day, until he doesn't remember being walked back to his cell anymore from the labs. The drugs they pump him full of make him sick to his stomach, and he heaves until he is gagging on his own blood, until his insides feel torn apart. He can barely manage to summon the strength to read the book anymore, but he protects it and clutches it close to himself when the showers start each morning. Time drags on in this manner for an eternity of suffering._

_He doesn't know how old he is anymore, but he knows that he is dying a slow and painful death. The only thing that has been keeping him going for so far is the fictional character of Shadow Moon_.

_He wakes an indeterminate time from his last torture session of medical tests and procedures, unsure of his surroundings. His vision is blurry at best, and the side of his head pulses with white hot pain. He reaches up to the side of his head and is horrified to find that a patch of his long, beautiful hair has been shaved down to bald scalp in parts, and sickened to find plastic tubing and probes burrowing into his skull. He curls up on his side and sobs until he cannot fell anymore. _

_They are taking everything from him. They took his life and his freedom. He no longer has a real name. He is only "Kitten," as per his code name, a moniker that some cute little scientist dreamed up due to his youth and innocence compared to the other test subjects. He screams through the torture and agony, until he is raw, until he has no more voice left. It is worn to a faint, hoarse, and barely audible hiss, unintelligible by most accounts. They take everything from him, but it is his book that keeps him alive, reminds him that, no matter what happens and no matter how terrible it gets, he is still alive, still breathing. It reminds him to defy everything they push before him no matter what the consequences. Eventually, as punishment, they even take his beloved _American Gods_ from him, and that is the final straw._

xxxx

Instinctively, both parties took their half of the book and clutched it tighter to them, protecting the book. Tony hadn't even realized his hold of his half had turned into a white knuckled grip until he saw Kitten as a mirror image. He felt her pain when Obadiah's men took the book. His fingers squeezed the pages as though for dear life, for it had been for dear life once for Amatista.

xxxx

_He tries to kill himself anyway he can. Anything to stop the pain and suffering from which there is no respite now. At first, his attempts are straightforward and ill thought out. He attacks guards, tries to steal scalpels and syringes filled with who knows what in a desperate attempt to put an end to reason, and end to it all. Then, he smashes drinking glass from his food tray to eat the shards before they decide to switch to plasticware and the sloppy oatmeal like sludge that doesn't require utensils to consume. The glass tastes hot and cold at the same time somehow, and he dully recognizes the coppery taste as his own blood pouring down his throat. They stop him every time, bring him back from the brink, and it only earns him more time in isolation and bruises from fights with the guards or time restrained in the infirmary. He cannot muster the courage to work a spell to kill himself, but he keeps trying. _

_It is then that he settles on a final plan, inspired by Neil Gaiman himself. In the book, upon hiring Shadow, Mr. Wednesday made him promise to hold his vigil for him. When Wednesday is killed by the gods of new, Shadow takes the body to the base of a great tree and allows himself to be hung, like Odin in the eddas on his quest for knowledge. Shadow hangs upon the tree for days until dehydration sets in, along with hallucinations, and, eventually, he dies, where all of his questions about the new and old gods of America are answered. He smiles when he thinks about Shadow on the obvious reference to the World Tree. It is so easy, and so obvious that he could almost kick himself. That night, he balled up in his corner, dreaming of Shadow. Every time they bring him food and water for the next two days, he thinks of nothing but Shadow, hanging from ancient ropes on a tree that had stood for, perhaps, centuries. He wonders if, like Shadow, he will eventually drift between the land of the dead and the real world, and, if so, will his own heart measure up when his deeds, both good and bad, were laid bare? _

xxxx

Whatever hatred had once been in Tony Stark directed at Kitten died a grizzly death there, as Tony felt his stomach and body hollowing in the starvation. He had been there, precisely there, and in the same situation. Even without feeling it, Tony had known what it had been like to reach that point of desperation, when the only thing that could be done was to just give up, give in, and let go of everything. He saw the despondency in himself once as he lie upon chilling stone and stared at paltry water on the far side of a cramped cell in the mountains. But the human body alone was a tricksy thing that did not _want _to slip away so easily into the cold embrace of death. Tony knew the strength it took, the desperation, to push down basic survival instincts and force oneself not to leap at the chance to get food and water once more.

A small connection to those days in the caves of Afghanistan, a tiny spark, strangled the life out of his own anger towards Kitten, leaving him instead with a deep sympathy and sorrow. Kitten had, after all, once been nothing more than a little girl, just little Amatista Labropoulos. She had never wanted any of this, Tony now knew, nor had she ever had any intent of being a murderer.

All Amatista had ever wanted was to just be normal, instead of a walking weapon. It was the same feeling Tony had in the caves when faced with Raza's demands for him to construct a Jericho. Raza's orders would put millions of lives in jeopardy, and all Tony had to do to stop the terrorists, to save the world, was to just give in and die himself. All Amatista had to do to save the world from herself, from whatever Obadiah Stane and Nicholas Aurelius wanted to mold her into, was to die.

Was it really such a hard thing for the two of them to do?

xxxx

_They do not take him for any tests and leave him to his suffering aside from trying to coax him to eat or drink, but he stubbornly refuses, basking in the strange mercy borne of not having to endure another day of torture granted by his own snowballing suicide. He tries to sleep, to enjoy being left alone by the scientists. No more poking, no more prodding, no more summoning up spells for their amusement despite the damage it does to him. He tries so very hard to just let his eyes closed and drift into a deep slumber, to dream, but he cannot. Instead, after a time, he begins to slip back and forth between the real world and hallucinations. He dreams of swaying in the limbs of a great tree alongside Shadow. He dreams of shimmering marble palaces and secret places deep in the earth where Oracles consult the most ancient of powers. He lingers in these memories and embraces them in favor of the real world and the agony his self imposed starvation is causing, until he can no longer bring himself back to the tiny, cold cell with its white tiles and clear window._

_His mind finally settles on a final dream, though. He is flying through the wind, the breeze rustling his crimson feathers as flames streak across the heavens. He is a herald. He is a teacher. He has waited for two thousand years or more for another pupil, since the times when Delphi held more sway than the dollar. And he finds her. She is a curious child, indeed, born far from the ancestral homes of his kind across vast waters and distant time. A sweet, little girl, with eyes that held unspoken sorrows and an unfailing hope. He is there as she is born. He is there when her father dies, watching. When she falls from the window and breaks her arm, he stays with her, cuddling up beside her to keep her warm and safe until help arrives. When he sees what trouble she is in afterwards, what trouble his presence has caused her, he does not allow her to see him, but he always remains close. He is there her entire life, waiting, even after she thought he had abandoned her. And, when her body and mind are finally ready, he is there for her once more to strike the final and necessary blow to free herself from her stepfather. He teachers her, singing softly in her ears and guiding her through the years, even keeping a sharp vigil over her in the cells. He pulls at her unseen strings and moves her in mysterious ways through an unknown, instinctive dance._

_He listens to her and watches curiously as she dreams of a life where she is called "Amatista." He tuts at the human name. Amatista means "full of wine," and she is not. It is not her true name, the name which called her into existence. He nudges her limp arm and tells her his true name, "Feng." He calls her "Huang." The male phoenix "Feng," and the female, "Huang." He cautions the girl not to tell anyone her true name, for it gives them power and dominion over her. He wraps the dying girl in her true name, like many golden cords of silken thread, woven of his own flames and feathers, knotting and braiding it about her with care. They, the dark people, humans with no hearts to be weighed against, they took her name and saddled her with a false name; he gives her a better one. He knows it warms her and brings her a final, earthly peace before the end comes._

_When she does die, finally lifted from that cold, lonely cell, he is there with her. Her heart is set upon a great, golden scale as a hideous, indescribable and skulking beast sits, impatiently shifting from side to side, watching hungrily. He ignores the monster in favor of crooning a sweet song to comfort the clearly frightened girl, even as he gingerly plucks one of his own, glorious, flaming red feathers from his tail. An ibis headed god, Thoth, approaches and takes the feather in his massive hand, gently setting it across the scale from the girl's still beating heart. There is a tense moment as the scales tip back and forth before Thoth, the scribe, shakes his head, looking to the eager beast grimly. The beast actually yips and circles like a happy puppy awaiting the treat of a tasty morsel. _

_His mouth opens absently and speaks in an ancient tongue to the ibis headed god, a language seldom heard by man in all those long millennia of existence and evolution, saying only two words. "Not yet."_

_The ancient god peers down its long, slender bill at the girl, possibly sneering if such a thing could be said. "You have a great task ahead of you, my dear." _

_Reality comes back abruptly, instantly corroding the god before him, and he is no longer the phoenix bird. He is back in his own prison of a body, lying on a firm mattress. His hands are bound in hard restraints, held at his sides. He panics for a moment, feeling his heart racing in his chest, and it makes him cough and gag at the same time on something scratching at his throat. He peers around and surveys his situation. He is in the place he has come to call the Infirmary, and there is a pile of tubes and diagnostic equipment dangling about him and wrapping about his body like many snakes. They have forced both food and liquids into him, bringing him back from the brink of death. He groans inwardly; he can't even kill himself right in this place. _

_Then, deliriously, he laughs, unable to control a fit of giggles that tore through his aching, sunken in stomach. How utterly stupid of him to inspire this suicide attempt from Shadow on the World Tree, because Shadow CAME back. His attempt was doomed from the beginning, but that doesn't mean he can't try again. If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence proving you tried, and, in this case, it still meant his weak, pathetic, emaciated body, his broken and shattered soul. The doctors inject something into his IV port, and the world washes away in a hazy fog._

_After a couple of days, they dump him back in his cell, for the process to repeat. Starve for a few days, wake up in the Infirmary bound to a gurney. Again and again, until he can longer think straight except to contemplate what potential brain damage he is doing to himself. A part of him is giddy at the possibility of destroying whatever links him to the magic, and he holds tight to that wish. At least, if he is going to suffer and die, he'll get the last laugh._

_And, then, in the night, the world explodes around him. There is chaos unfolding just beyond the clear wall of his cell, just a small measure away from him. The scientists are running and fleeing. They are screaming for mercy as they are cut down in a hail of gunfire. He pounds on the wall, begging for help even as his vision goes red and soft down enfolds him. He is slammed back and to the ground in a great blow of fire and force, the air knocked right from his lungs. He blinks, struggling to get up and to run, but there is no energy left. _

_A pair of hands reaches down and he tries to jerk back, instinctively, but a voice drawls soothingly in his ears. "Shh... shh... you're okay." He blinks and looks up into the face of a gruff biker, as the stranger brushes his long locks out of his eyes. "You're safe now."_

_"Did you find the package?" a voice crackles at the man's side._

_The biker pulls some sort of a cell phone or walkie talkie from his side, far too advanced than any biker has any right owning. "Yeah." The biker looks down and strokes his cheek with care. "I've got it. On my way out."_

_Consciousness slips away as the biker begins to lift him up off the ground, cradling him in two arms. When he awakens again, he is in a warm bed in a dank, decrepit place. Possibly a warehouse, possibly a flat. Who knew? He jumped to instant consciousness, suddenly worrying about what new trick or test this could be, but he hasn't the strength to stay upright for more than a couple of seconds. A sound at the doorknob startles him, but he is met only by the biker who has rescued him. The biker brings him a thin broth, arguing that he _does _in fact have some minor culinary prowess but that he is concerned that anything more substantial will be rejected by his body. He allows the biker to feed him a bit before falling back to sleep. He allows himself to be cocooned by a sense of safety and security that he has been lacking for so very long, waking up in short intervals to have some broth and occasionally some tea with honey. It takes time before he feels well enough to sit and finally scrape together some words to say to the biker._

_The man is just as curious about him as he is of the biker who had saved him, and they share information. He spills everything in an emotional vent that leaves him raw but composed, having spent all of his tears that he would freely give in those cells. The only thing he does not share is his true name, nor his human name. He shares with the biker the code name, the name he has come to think of as his name for now as Kitten. He comes to learn that his savior is named Wedge, but that this is not Wedge's real name. Wedge is apparently another little euphemism that roughly meant the "hair of the dog that bit you," according to the biker. _

_Wedge dances around the subject about why he was there in the facility, but, when faced by the stern gaze of a phoenix staring through his eyes with fiery rage, Wedge relents. He admits everything. Wedge is a shadowrunner, a deniable asset. He had been hired by Mitsuhama Computer Technologies for an obscene amount to destroy the secret research project as effectively and discreetly as possible, with an added bonus if they acquired certain "lab animals." He arranged a small team of close comrades that he trusted well and knew would take the job. They secreted into the lab and started unleashing havoc to keep the guards busy as they looked for the lab animals. A kitten. A fox. An ibis. A scorpion. And others. _

_The fox startles him, and he asks of the biker, "Where's Fox?"_

_The biker looks crestfallen. "She was already too far gone. Her mind." The shadowrunner taps the side of his temple glumly. "It was just mush from whatever they were doing to you. It made her uncontrollable. We couldn't help her."_

_"Where is she?" he demands again sternly, feeling the fire rise in his gullet and churn, twisting with heat. _

_The biker turns his head away. "We dropped her off at County."_

_"And the others?" he asks._

_The biker shakes his head in response, as though to say that there were only two. No Jonas. None of the others. Just Fox, a broken shell of a woman, and himself. It nearly sends him over the edge to think about all that torture and suffering, all for nothing now that the others are dead. They were ruined now, the two of them, damaged goods. One, beyond repair. But the other, himself, maybe, just maybe, he could try to salvage himself. That leaves him as the only survivor, really. The gods had told him in his near death dreams that he had a great task ahead of him._

_He balls a fist in rage at the thought. "Who did this to us?"_

_"It was a joint project. Stark Industries and Ares," the biker responds succinctly. _

_He nods as Wedge goes on, but he hears only three names. Nicholas Aurelius. Obadiah Stane. Tony Stark. He will make them suffer as he has suffered in the dark. He will hurt them, destroy their projects. He will take everything from them as they took everything from him. He will destroy them. And he will do it under the name they gave him, so that they might know the name of the devil coming for them. But, first, he needs help. He needs weapons. He needs training. He needs intelligence. And Wedge's world, the world of the shadows, is the only place he can find them. And, in a way, he needs Jonas once more, knowing, feeling somehow, that, no matter what Wedge says, Jonas is alive._

_When he gets out of bed a week later, he totters about on unsteady, weak legs. It is annoying at first, to feel his body so cumbersome and inelegant, but he welcomes it strangely. He pushes on, constantly forcing himself further each day to a renewed strength and vigor. He hasn't the time to rest and feel sorry for himself as he puts himself on a strenuous regime of training. He has the awkward, ungainly motions of a newborn filly, for he is a creature reborn, but that will pass in time. Mitsuhama will claim that he is theirs, but he is no ones. He will never belong to anyone ever again. He has things that need to be accomplished, and, while he can't be certain, he feels that there are lives and futures at stake. _

_He is the human girl, Amatista Labropoulos. He is the corporate lab rat and shadowrunner, Kitten. He is the phoenix daughter, Huang. He is all of these and more, and he knows his task._

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: Well, there you have it. That's where she came from. Why is she sharing this? Well, you'll just have to wait and see. Just like you'll have to wait and see if our hero, spunky heroine (yeah, I think Pepper would kick my ass for saying 'spunky' there), and somewhat heroine (can we call her a heroine now or is she just a creepy bitch with a messed up past?) can work it out. And stay tuned to see what's up with Rhodes. You didn't think I forgot about him, now did you? wink wink


	28. Collaborative Effort

**DUMPSHOCK - COLLABORATIVE EFFORT**

"Jesus!"

Tony's stomach turned on him, sending the man to his hands and knees like an animal. He wretched with dry, hacking heaves. He remembered cursing earlier that morning that the bland, oatmeal like gruel they were served everyday was barely edible, fighting to choke down more than a few mouthfuls of it. The millionaire felt it ironic now that he thanked that fact for leaving him with little to throw up at all. When the nausea subsided enough to stop the heaves, Tony spat the taste from his mouth and sat back against the cool wall, closing his eyes.

Having been in so many god awful situations in the recent past, Tony had learned one universal truth to the world and to the human psyche. In the face of extreme mental and emotional trauma, the victim had to accept their natural psychological reactions as opposed to fighting them. The victim had to ride it like a wave, let it crest and fall naturally. Only then could the victim think and act clearly after allowing themselves to adjust to the stress. Tony let the panic of Kitten's memories and mental intrusion take hold of him, sending his respiration racing, his heart slamming in his chest. His mind wandered, wading through both his memories and Kitten's before settling upon Pepper Potts, his beautiful, gorgeous, elegant, graceful, intelligent and perfect assistant, and nothing else until his breath caught for a second.

It hit Tony, like a freight train. He had been keeping some small semblance of hope alive at the thought that Kitten had escaped this once before on her own. The inventor had been holding tight to the mental image of the shadowrunner just waltzing out of that facility out of her own, free will, perhaps dancing amid the flames of her own fires and that she was just staying there to piss him off. He had been wishing that Kitten had all sorts of other little magicks up her sleeves to compensate for the fact that he had barely mastered any small, trifling tricks with computers and gadgets. Granted, the man knew it was a completely irrational thought, but it was really the only thing keeping him from just curling up in the corner to die. Yet, now he knew the truth, that Kitten had really just lucked out when Wedge and his crew arrived, Tony felt any small, feeble dream of escaping that dark place slip away from him.

The fear slipped away from Tony, leaving him with a cold emptiness and the sickening feeling of violation worse than when Yinsen had installed the electromagnet in his chest. Kitten had been in his mind. Most humans considered their bodies to be the most scared thing they owned, the most personal thing, the only thing that no one else can take or violate in the world. Victims of rape know otherwise. Tony knew otherwise. The mind was the only place where no one could but, but Kitten had been there. She had forced herself upon him, like Henry had forced himself upon her. She had put those memories into him, like she had at his home, dragging up his memories of Afghanistan and Yinsen just to torture him, to rape himm mentally and emotionally, to hurt in a way no other human could ever be capable of accomplishing. Kitten had made him her plaything.

When he glanced to her, she was just... _sitting _there. It somehow made the lingering sensation of an alien presence in his mind rummaging through his own memories and thoughts for the second time in his life all the more... perverse. The sadistic little runner had done it to him twice now, filled him with illusions of pain and suffering for her own delight. The thought sent what little control the raw Tony had shattering as he spiraled over the edge once more.

An irrational rage welled up inside of Tony and vented in one, lunging motion before the inventor was truly consciously aware of what was happening save the tug on the cables attached to his chest. He leapt upon her once more, but, this time, Kitten did not fight, did not struggle. She just let it happen. He tackled her to the ground, leaning over her. A trickle of fear slipped into his mind, tainted by the taste of her memories, but Tony fought past it. It was just her, struggling to keep hold of her own, paranoid fears and phobias; Tony felt the screams and shrieks rising in her throat but held back by clenched teeth.

"You... little... bitch..."

Tony grabbed her by the head and slammed it back, feeling the strangest of satisfactions as her skull connected with the hard tile with a heavy thud. The inventor had never outrightly wanted to kill someone, never in his life. Granted, he had _thought _he wanted to kill both Obadiah and Raza and granted Tony Stark owned major shares in one of the leader weapons manufacturers in the world, but the man knew he never really wanted to kill anyone. Before Afghanistan, casualties merely represented abstract numbers, marketable success rates, and profit margins. After Afghanistan, after facing one of his own weapons, and after seeing Yinsen die before his eyes, Tony had come back a changed man, never wanting to have even the slightest role in murder of any kind. Kitten's mental intrusion, however, threatened to ruin that.

The girl hissed, drawing in air through her teeth, glaring furiously up at him, but she did not fight. That just made it worse. Tony wanted her to suffer, to be angry, to hate him back. He wanted her to fight him, to make it hard as she did during their morning spats. A distant part of Tony hoped she would snap out of whatever calm held her to fight back, through a punch or two, maybe even unleash the unholy hell that lurked behind her eyes with phoenix feathers and fire, anything to make killing her more difficult. Then, they could just viciously square off and hurt one another until, once more, they would both flop to the ground in two spent heaps. Then, Tony wouldn't have the energy to end her there.

Tony grabbed her by the neck, squeezing as tightly as he could, until she made a hoarse grunt. "What was that? What did you do to me?"

"I told you," she croaked between his fingertips. "The truth."

"No," Tony growled in a feral tone as he constricted his hold on her neck.

Tony had been hoping against hope that this was just another one of her games, Kitten being a bitch as always, but something to the way she said those words, to the look in her eyes, screamed otherwise. He blinked before narrowing his gaze once more.

He _wanted _to hate Kitten, to hurt her and to break her as she had been so desperately trying to break him, Yet Tony could not ignore the fact that, no matter how much he may have desired it, Amatista Labropoulos had been broken long ago in so many different ways. Her eyes spoke of a sadness and grief there that Tony now felt himself in the wake of her memories. And, for however much Stark yearned so very desperately to loathe Kitten once more to make things so much simpler, he couldn't bring it upon himself. He let her slip from his fingers to the floor beneath him where Kitten lie still, save for rasping gasps for air.

"'Prove to me that it was real."

Kitten didn't say anything. For a moment, the inventor wasn't certain if it was because of the pressure to her throat and larynx he'd just applied so forcefully, or if it were because she just didn't want to. Yet her eyes spoke for her, flicking up and to the side, as though gesturing to the side of her head. Tony's hands reached for her head, for her hair, but the girl didn't stop him. Instead, Kitten balled her fists and shut her eyes tight to let him touch her. She allowed his long fingers probe through her tangled, dark mane, running along her scalp and searching. When his fingertips came to a small ridge in the skin, Tony froze. He leaned close, parting the hair there to reveal a neat and precise surgical scar hidden under the pile of curls.

Tony flopped back against the wall, slumping in defeat. All of his plans for escape, no matter how harebrained, had all somehow involved Kitten kicking much ass and taking names. On bad days, when she truly grated on his last nerve, his plans seemed to shift into using her as a human shield and molotov cocktail to get out of there. Now, though, as he looked to her, she seemed smaller somehow, frailer in the light of this knowledge of how she had actually been liberated from that dark place. Looking at Kitten now was like staring into a 3d picture, the image of Amatista Labropoulos jumping out from the random patterning, still just a little girl somehow. The man tried to shake it off, to ignore it, but, now that he saw it, Tony couldn't look away.

The man shuffled back from her, leaving her lie there in the middle of the cell before retreating to his corner to think. If that was what Obadiah had done to Kitten, to a complete stranger, and to a child, no less, there was no telling now what he could and would do to Tony in the end. Tony, who was a known enemy of Obadiah Stane. He shuddered, toying with the heavy cables for a moment before drawing his knees up to his chest. The inventor rested his head on his knees.

She was still poking around in his mind, sifting through what knowledge he had and slipping through his thoughts. For the first time, however, Tony didn't care. He had seen the evidence and could not deny it. The scar at the side of Kitten's head matched the memories she had implanted into his mind. The line had been neat and perfect, made with a great skill and precision that only a well-trained and experienced doctor would have, validating at least that critical portion of the memories. Beyond that, he just didn't have the energy or the nerve to fight whatever the girl did to his mind.

Kitten tried to press her nose into her half of _American Gods_ as she continued to probe Tony's mind. He closed his eyes, slumped to his side, and rested his throbbing skull against the cool tile of the floor. If there wasn't anything she could do to get them out of there, to help him, there wasn't any sense in hiding anything from her. Not now. He felt images racing across his mind's eye, following them in logic jumps, back and forth like a tennis match, lilting and leaping across his passing whims freely. The images stuttered between places in the facility, his mental map, the code to the door, Pepper Potts, and, oddly enough the arc reactor.

The impressions settled upon the arc reactor, coalescing upon the thing with a strange intent. When Tony cracked open an eye, Kitten had her half of the novel up to her face, her hair down and loose, cascading past her shoulders. Where he not at the perfect, angle, the inventor might not had spied the quick glance the girl darted in his general direction, the questioning written in her every feature as the arc reactor turned slowly in his mind, glowing slightly off color. Tony blinked slowly. It was _her _impression of the arc reactor. The inventor furrowed his brow, feeling the same, odd superimposition of the thought implanted and laced over his own thoughts.

_"What does she want?" _he thought.

Much to his surprise, she answered without moving her lips or uttering a single word, but that did not mean that he did not hear her. Tony frowned at the presence, but Kitten kept her expression flat and stoic, hardly looking up at him. The image of the arc reactor kept revolving in his mind, slowly spinning about an unseen axis. While the shadowrunner did not pose an actual question, Tony could feel the wondering there. She wanted to know more about the thing that had been embedded in his chest. As if to emphasize the point, he felt a small mental nudge from the girl's general direction as red flared in his vision.

Tony rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling, breathing, "It's..."

An eagle scream pierced through his mind, silencing the inventor with a deafening mental shriel. Warm flames licked at his mind as downy feathers seared with a burning heat across his skull for but an instant. Tony furrowed his brow and looked to Kitten, her nose still pressed between the pages of _American Gods_. He felt her rummage about through her own, disordered thoughts for a moment, searching for something to communicate something quickly and efficiently.

After a moment, a though bubbled up in Tony's mind. A cold, grey city in the winter with desolate snowy streets, like the memory of a dream. He stood in a supermarket, standing by the pay phone and staring out large windows as chunky snowflakes began to fall outside. On the other side of the street, there stood a bank ATM with haphazardly printed signs on it. Kitten shuffled about in front of the ATM with a secure attache case, her hands stuffed into a long coat that had to be four of five sizes too large for her. As people came up to deposit their money, Kitten assured them with grand hand gestures, nods of her head, and some phony business cards probably still hot off the press from a local Kinkos that their money was safe with her while repairs were made to the ATM. Tony watched with a small smirk on his face as they just handed money over to Kitten until a pair of cops came sauntering along asking too many questions. Kitten handed them a second business card, and, in a heartbeat, the pay phone beside the millionaire rang.

Tony's breath caught in his chest while his heart slammed against his ribcage. If he answered it, what would he say? Tony reached out hesitantly, taking the hard, black plastic phone off of the silver cradle and brought it to his ear. He swallowed hard before even saying a word.

"Hello?"

While Tony couldn't be certain what exactly was said to him aside a dull droning, perhaps where Kitten couldn't quite recall the dialogue, leaving him with the impression of adults on _Snoopy _chatting. He glanced up to Kitten in the cell, dawning on the realization of what this was as she stared back with those eagle eyes of hers. It was the two-man con with the ATM, and she was asking him to be the second man. As soon as his knew it, the girl dipped her head slightly.

When Tony didn't immediately give any reply, either mental or verbal, Kitten shifted her weight uneasily in her spot, and a million images flashed into his mind. His thoughts walked in her footsteps through the labs and the white halls. He saw Obadiah smiling down upon him proudly, clapping a hand on his shoulder in praise for spells. Tony felt her mental map and traced it, mashing it together with his own mapping of the facility. Hers spanned a greater area, with far more detail, suggesting Obadiah had been comfortable with her compliance to allow her the opportunity and the repetition to know the lay of the land. Or, perhaps it was because she had already been there once before for three years. Whatever the case was, Kitten practically downloaded the information right into him with the same efficiency. It didn't linger long, but Tony held to every scrap of information he could from the vast array offered to him.

_"A two man con."_

This whole time, Tony had been quite certain that the shadowrunner had given up, even when the girl insisted she was waiting for the calvary. This, however, was most assuredly evidence to the contrary. Kitten had been planning, plotting, as much, if not more than Tony. While he had been languishing in a cold fear and desperation, allowing the pain of his own trials to distract him, Kitten had been working the whole time. She had been mapping and making notations. She had been putting things together and hoping to use him just as much as he had been hoping to use her to get the hell out of there now that she knew it was unlikely Wedge would not be coming for her. Somehow, Tony suddenly didn't feel so bad about the thoughts of using her like a pawn when faced with the reality that she had been planning to do the same thing to him.

There had been a time, Tony realized, a rather long time, when Kitten had been plotting to leave him entirely in the dark, leave him in general and make her own escape. Yet, now, with her so open and so freely sharing information through whatever link remained between them, he saw the problems. Obadiah and Aurelius had seen fit to upgrade security since her prior stay, making it far harder for the assassin to just slip out or blast her way out. They were deep below ground now, Tony knew. And, abreast of Kitten's unique talents, someone had suggested heavy, thick, bunker doors with bolts that slid deep into home and electronic locks. She had seen Jonas work well enough to know that a technomancer could possibly get through those locks, if only they had enough back-up and time to work undistracted. She needed him to pick those locks with his mind, if possible.

He glanced up to Kitten once more, across the street in the busily increasing snow storm as white out threatened to swallow the vignette whole. The two cops by her sides were looking rather annoyed at the delay. Kitten looked frightened. Dare he say she trembled as she stared at him with begging eyes. The officers drew their firearms and aimed them at Kitten, but, still, the mercenary stared at him with wide, wild eyes through the supermarket windows and the swirling snow. The phone felt cold, alien, and unfamiliar in his hands.

"Sir?" The voice on the phone spoke again.

Tony closed his eyes once more, swallowing hard before answering. He didn't hear his answer, but the inventor didn't care. Instead, he drew up as much as he could on the arc reactor. He thought the brutal and sharp agony of waking up to the initial implantation, focusing on the mental images of shards of metal twisting through his veins and towards his hearts. There wasn't a way to explain gigajoules or output, just simple mechanics. Magnets danced in his mind, snapping together and drawing the metal towards them, away from his heart. Poetic and cliched it might be, but it was the best, nontechnical way he could think about the arc reactor in his chest.

He glared Kitten as her eyes seemed to be shifting back and forth over the images. Tony cracked a devilish grin, knowing now that he sent her the impressions as much as she could send him. He reached deep, finding the memory of Obadiah ripping the arc reactor from his chest, stringing together as much of it as he could consciously recall, and forcing it back upon her. Kitten flinched back, pressing into the wall and clawing at her chest, at a surgical port that she never had. Her fingers dug into her own flesh at the agony that he had felt even mere moments after the arc reactor had been stolen from him. She gasped for air, sucking through her teeth. Tony chuckled as he let the memories slip from himself.

"Shit," she swore, before lazily turning her eyes to him, waving her hands at the cables running from the port and out of the cell.

Tony chortled to himself awkwardly, feeling like there was nothing else he really could say or do in a situation like that except for the grim words that slipped across his tongue. "Yeah, sucks to be me, doesn't it?"

Kitten flashed him a hot glare in annoyance but spoke softly. "Can't live without it?"

The inventor shook his head solemnly. "Not for long."

She went silent, unearthly still and contemplative. Tony hadn't seen her like this the entire time, but, perhaps, it was because the man hadn't cared to look. Up until about five or ten minutes ago, Kitten had been among the enemy. He still wasn't quite sure she wouldn't instantly turn her back on him given the opportunity, but Tony could feel the tension in her from across the room through whatever link they now shared. He felt her turning over numbers and plans in her head, considering them carefully before summarily discarding them, over and over again, wracking her brain through all the possibilities.

Tony furrowed his brow. "Kitten?"

"Hmm?" the girl barely looked in his direction, still feigning reading her broken novel for illusion's sake, but the inventor knew she plotted still.

"Why did you want to know?"

She turned a page absently, shaking her head. "It's nothing."

A lie. Tony could taste it through whatever passed between them, vile and repulsive. Oh, Kitten was a good liar, but she couldn't hide it when the colors of her mind shifted and changed right about him.

"Why did you show me that? Why now?" Tony pressed.

The girl merely shrugged her shoulders, but that wasn't good enough. He peered intently at the girl across the cell from him, watching her, studying her body language and feeling the warmth pulsating through her mind with wing beats. The girl looked tense, uncomfortable and stiff. He reached out for her, forcing his thoughts to come together upon her, searching her eyes and what little of her thoughts that bubbled up for some sort of answer. Tony furrowed his brow as Kitten thought of the labs, of Obadiah's sneering face, of the tests she had been through. A word blazed amid her thoughts, but it blurred before him the more he tried to focus on it. Something with a "v." And, then, in a heartbeat, the connection severed suddenly, and Tony was alone in his mind, cut-off from Kitten.

The girl didn't look at him. "Not yet."

"Fine," he breathed, letting himself droop onto the floor. "Whatever, Kitten."

She looked to him, and, behind her eyes, phoenix wings flared with a fiery glow as words met his mind. _"We need to get out of here. You know that. I know that. Fucking cows know that. And that's all you need to know right now."_

Tony drummed his fingers on the surgical port. "I need to get the reactor."

_"Duly noted,"_ Kitten breathed in his mind with the curt, professional tone that the millionaire recognized as the mercenary in her, the businesswoman and corporate spy, a simple statement that seemed to promise.

He jerked at the cables still attached to his chest. "I'm not going anywhere anytime soon."

_"No. But they let me out of here."_

Tony smirked to himself. "You don't even know what it is or where to look for it."

_"No..."_ Kitten pursed her lips together cocking her head to one side. _"But you do."_

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tony demanded.

The girl shrugged. _"Just leave the arc thing up to me."_

"And what then?"

Kitten turned her head to the side, rolling her eyes at him. _"And then we make a nuclear warhead out of duct tape, some chewing gum and a fucking paperclip. You're the genius. You go figure something out."_

And, with that, the mental presence trickled away.

xxxx

Taiga Mitsuhama came through with information in no time, it seemed, a sign of good faith. He had taken Pepper's more than generous offer of both Tony Stark's millions and the promise of Ares Industries's demise with little adieu beyond their initial meeting. Pepper still winced inwardly at the thought of having spent so much money of Tony's in one shot, knowing that Stark would probably be slightly more than pissed at her for doing it. Tony would have bitterly argued that the money would have been better spent on top shelf liquor, fine gambling, fast cars, and parts for the Ironman exosuits. That was fine with Pepper. He could argue his new and lower tax bracket with her when he came home _alive_.

Yet, the money had apparently been well spent, and even Pepper had to admit that with a careful nod to both Mitsuhama and Fury when they met again to study the data MCT had on file in regards to both Stark and Ares Industries. Mitsuhama had invited them to a night club apparently on the MCT payroll during the daytime when closed. He had been so gracious to provide both Pepper and Fury with coffee before producing a rather large assortment of files, folders, documents, and electronic data on a secure laptop. Upon seeing the files, the woman began to wonder what sorts of corporate espionage Mitsuhama had engaged in to acquire such information. Schematics and blue prints of buildings. Employee rosters and copies of their W-2s. Shift schedules. Research and development project dossiers and experimental designs. Even copies of Tony Stark's personal calendar or events was among the detailed information in regards to Ares and Stark Industries.

Pepper raised an eyebrow at the last file, garnering a flippant wave of the hand from Mitsuhama. "It pays in our field to be overly aware of our competition's activities, especially to a degree that might seem borderline obsessive compulsive and paranoid."

The woman blinked at Mitsuhama and glanced to Fury knowingly. "Paranoia can be healthy in moderation."

"Oh, Potts-san, you do not have to be so coy with me," Mitsuhama sang as waved his hand over the table, lighting up a series of holograms not unlike the electronic drafting table that had once stood in the basement of Tony's home, outlining the Mark III suit in crisp blue. "I have been aware of Stark-san's extracurricular activities since long before he made his little announcement." Taiga sighed, shaking his head. "A pity so few believed him."

"You did," Pepper countered, cocking an eyebrow at the millionaire.

Taiga laughed politely. "I did no such thing." When the woman fixed him in with an inquiring gaze, Mitsuhama smirked to her. "I contracted a runner to secure Stark-san's personal files." The man stroked his chin, studying the schematic. "A magnificent design." The man shot her a quick, darting glance that spoke volumes to the calculated statement that followed, both hinting and begging without sounding as such. "It is sad that the suits were destroyed in the fire."

"You have the schematics. You could always build another one and take up where Tony left off," Pepper pointed out, her voice cold and venomous.

Mitsuhama chuckled once more at that one. "Ah, Potts-san, you have me confused once more with a philanthropist and an idealist. While the suits are a crowning achievement in engineering and aeronautics, Stark-san's designs are, for lack of a better way to put it, _too _well designed. The exosuits render most modern arms obsolete except in the most skilled of hands. Mass production of such would shut down our more profitable lines."

Pepper caught herself smirking slightly at the admitted bottom line behind Taiga Mitsuhama's seeming good will towards Tony Stark before continuing. "So, what do you have for us?"

"There are very few locations that boast the security required to hold a mage like Kitten-san for very long," Mitsuhama replied, clacking away at the keyboard to his laptop with a speed that would have made even Tony green with envy before punching in a holographic map of the world, revolving on a lazy axis. "Cross referencing between security needs, facility design, and supply chains, left six possibilities." Four dots appeared over the continental United States as Miitsuhama spoke. "Seattle. Detroit. Baltimore. Atlanta. Outside of the United States, Paris and Copenhagen." The man paused. "MCT first came into contact with Kitten at the Atlanta facility. Operations had been relatively inactive there for some time but resumed quite recently, going from minimal security to full shifts."

"Hmm." Nick Fury nodded slowly, contemplatively as he mulled over the information. "They could be setting up shop there."

"It is the likeliest location," Mitsuhama admitted, pulling up a detailed blue print of the building. "Highly secure."

Pepper studied the floor plan carefully, letting her eyes rove over it. The upper building seemed simple enough. A blocky, boxy building dropped in the middle of what seemed to be Sandy Springs (formerly the Unincoporated Fulton County, according to a footnote), right outside of 285, the Atlanta Bypass that wreathed the city and the suburbs. The upper portion contained mostly offices and clerical sections. The basement, however, seemed another story, spreading deep underground like the roots of a tree burrowing beneath the surface. There were laboratories, testing rooms, chemical stores, all sorts of things that Pepper Potts felt certain the good people of Sandy Springs would likely not tolerate. Alongside the building detail, Mitsuhama included shift schedules and patterns, all annotated to point out the sharp influx of guard rotations over the last two months, suggesting that not only had Obadiah and Aurelius done this, but that they had planned it.

The woman's heart fluttered in her chest. There was a distinct probability- not just possibility- that Tony was there, along with Kitten. She felt so very close now, until something hit her.

"Are we certain?" the woman breathed.

Mitsuhama raised an eyebrow. "It is the more probable candidate."

"And the other facilities?" Pepper pressed.

Fury surveyed the personnel files with a cursory glance as Mitsuhama argued, "There has been a rather large shift in man power to that location. It seems highly un-"

"She's right," Fury cut him off.

Mitsuhama blinked. "Excuse me?"

"We can't be certain," the colonel admitted with a heavy sigh.

"Are you insinuating that my intel is skewed?" the Asian demanded hotly.

Fury shook his head. "Not all, Mr. Mitsuhama." He continued to sweep his gaze over the files. "It is just that this seems too neat. Obadiah Stane and Nicholas Aurelius are nothing if not intelligent and manipulative. This could all be a calculated move in false pretense."

"What are you suggesting we do, then, Agent Fury?"

"Any move we make against Obadiah and Aurelius needs to be the right one. We need to verify that this is the right location before acting. Otherwise, Obadiah will be onto our actions, and he'll just go deeper into hiding. We'll never find them if that happens." Pepper was the one who spoke up, level headed and clear with her need to find Tony. "We observe. We track. We gather more intelligence."

Fury beamed smartly at her. "Spoken like a true agent of S.H.I.E.L.D."

xxxx

Kitten woke Tony in the night, when it was still dark. Or, rather, she did not seem to mean to wake him. In the darkness and void, the cool and gentle touch of her forehead to his, along with a faint, whispered prayer. After that, the mercenary retreated to her corner of the cell, but he felt her with him, lingering in the back of his mind, tickling at his thoughts like eagle feathers.

He didn't sleep beyond that.

When they came for her in the morning, Tony glanced up and met her eyes for but the briefest of moments. She did not say or do anything save glare at him bitterly, the old Kitten lingering in the forefront of the girl's consciousness now. Tony scowled back at her. The two man con. He watched her leave him alone in the cold cell, knowing that the scientists and Obadiah would come for him eventually, bring their tests to him in that bit of cell.

But, still, a part of his mind wasn't there. It was with Kitten. It walked with her down lonely, white corridors and through the labs to where they used her, exploited the phoenix that lurked with the girl. Tony recalled all these places from the mental maps she and he had shared. His heart shuttered along with his as they led her to a sterile seeming laboratory with a chair. His breaths hitched in his chest when they strapped her to a frozen metal chair with thick cuffs, heavy leather, and chains. Kitten tested the strength of the bindings, and Tony felt them bite into his wrists ever so slightly.

When Obadiah appeared in front of her, Tony couldn't help but feel his own heart stop for but the briefest of moments, but he licked his lips, swallowed, and focused his thoughts in an arrow to her. _"Concentrate._"

_"I know," _came the mental reply in a tired, almost battered and raw voice.

Her eyes scanned the room as his eyes, painting a mental picture for Tony even from the distance that spanned between them. The inventor tried to clear his own thoughts and be as receptive to it as possible, staring at the instruments. There were tools laid out on a table before him, all clean and gleaming in stainless steel. As Kitten's eyes darted across them, Tony felt her shudder once more. Recollections of waking to surgical ports in the side of her head reeled through the girl, sending shivers up both her spine and Tony's. He blinked to push the memories down, as involuntary as they had been for both of them. Kitten's gaze drifted to the side, to the many cabinets, computers, and monitors as leads were placed upon her chest and forehead.

A white coated doctor swirled to Kitten's left, snatching her attention away from her scans and to the man. He smiled upon her warmly. His expression, demeanor, and white hair all made the man seem like an uncle or grandfather, yet Kitten's almost palpable dread spoke volumes to Tony through the link. She looked down, and Tony spied her hands balled into white-knuckled fists. The phoenix screeched in the back of her mind and Tony's as crimson spread over their shared vision and as Kitten struggled for control over herself. KItten shut her eyes tight for a moment, the phoenix waiting for her, begging to be set free. She whispered the words to an ancient prayer that Tony had never heard before, and, once the words slipped across his mind, he would never remember.

Lists began to pour from Kitten to Tony. _"Pilot pens, black ink 5. Pilot pen, red ink. 0.7mm mechanical pencil. Clip boards 3. Manilla folios 53. Paper clips 147. Scalpels 4. Lancets 4. Retractor. Hypodermic syringes several. Digital calipers. Cannulae several. Catheter several of various sizes and types. Tuohy needle. Eelectroencephalograph..."_

The list went on and on through a wide arrange of medical tools and devices that Tony cared not dwell upon at the moment, but nothing anywhere remotely like the arc reactor. Kitten kept going, her voice droning on in his head as she continued to list everything in the room. Tony stared as her gaze bore down upon cabinets in front of her before realizing she was listing everything in the drawers moving from one side to the other. He felt something warm trickle down his nose as copper graced his lips, but, when Tony reached to touch it, there was nothing. It was Kitten, her nose bleeding from the effort of maintaining the connection with Tony and whatever spell allowed her to so quickly and efficiently catalogue everything in the room about her.

The doctor produced something from his pocket, snapping Kitten's attention and gaze to his smug face. The contents of the list shifted rather abruptly from mere tools and supplies to chemicals that Tony only vaguely recognized by name.

_"Clonazepam, diazepam, methyl trichloride, haloperidol, prochlorperazine, scopolamine, fentanyl, ephedrine, epinephrine, dopamine..."_

The list suddenly stopped as a sharp prick jabbed Kitten in the neck, leaving a dull sting transferred to Tony through the connection. She blinked, as did the inventor. Her vision blurred, but the red remained. A dizzy haze washed over both Kitten and Tony in a way. Her head swam, and the thoughts she sent to him became increasingly unclear. He licked his lips once more and squeezed his hands tightly, as though trying desperately to will her to keep searching and trying. Yet even he could feel her eyelids growing heavy and her thoughts becoming disjointed.

She drifted from Tony. _"No, stay with it. Keep looking."_

The white coats were drawing close to her, their voices booming in the girl's ears, but her mind was too split to be aware what they were saying.

The last thing he got from Kitten before darkness took her and severed the connection was the weary mental whimper of, _"'S not here."_

Tony swore.

Each and every day he found himself swearing more and more as the arc reactor eluded them at every step of the way.

**XXXX**


	29. Counterstrike

**DUMPSHOCK - COUNTERSTRIKE**

They came for them once more in the night, but, this time, Tony's heart fell when he noticed that they came for him as well. For once, they didn't force the inventor to say or do anything. Nothing. Every other day leading up to this had been trials after trial of skill with whatever technomancy really was for him. This time, there was just a quick visit, a sharp jab at the side of his neck, and nothingness.

xxxx

"And you're sure of this now?"

Pepper Potts leaned over Taiga Mitsuhama's shoulder, staring at the computer files presented to her. They listed personnel rosters as well as medical requisition forms and power usage. The millionaire tapped away at his computer, the keys clacking under his swift fingers. Her heart raced as the man continued to compile the data they had collected over the course of yet another agonizing month of waiting, hoping, and praying for some sign of Tony's whereabouts. And, now that they were so close, the woman could almost taste it.

Mitsuhama nodded. "There is no question. Atlanta is where you will find Tony Stark."

The woman looked to both Fury and Mitsuhama with a cut nod. "Assemble the team. We move out ASAP."

xxxx

Tony awoke in slow stages after however long it had been, his throbbing head drawing him from merciful unconsciousness until he snapped to full alertness with a start. He had been dumped on his side in the cell, on the side of his head that didn't scream in agony. The man blinked to clear his sleep blurred vision before rubbing his eyes to glance about.

Kitten had been dropped across the cell from him. Her back had been left to him as she lie on her left side. The inventor dimly worried by the stillness of the girl, that perhaps she had slipped away in the night. However, the man kept studying her, fixing a hawk-like gaze upon the girl until he found the steady but shallow rise and fall of her chest, her weak respiration a solemn reassurance that the runner still lived. Tony's heart twisted sickly at the thought of her dying only six feet away from him while he just slept right on through it. He wanted to move to her, but it would give away the con if he did.

Then, just as abruptly as he had come to, the girl's breathing shifted from that of slumber to a slowly dawning consciousness. Her body stiffened slightly, tension rippling down her back and through her muscles, even from Tony's place. Kitten's body grew limp once more, as though she drifted in and out of reality.

The inventor dared utter, "Kitten?"

The girl did not respond vocally. Instead, a hand of hers moved, twitching sightly before planting its self firmly upon the frigid tile floor beneath her. Slowly, awkwardly, Kitten forced her lithe body up and off the ground, her muscles clenching with exertion, her back still to the other captive.

"Kitten?" Tony called again nervously.

The runner ignored him, reaching up with a timid hand to the right side of her head and patting desperately at something. A sob wrenched its self from her, as her fingers found something there, hidden beneath the dark waves of her curly locks. Those slender digits explored whatever they'd found for a moment as her breath hitched in her chest, ragged and horrified. Kitten trembled now, her fingers and body freezing in place.

"Kitten... what is it?"

Slowly, Kitten turned, her eyes holding a vague confusion and terror, wet with tears that she stubbornly refused to allow, and Tony's jaw dropped. The hair from the right side of her head had been mercilessly shorn off in a softball sized patch. Tubes snaked together and ducked under her skin where a precise incision had been neatly stitched in black thread. Small probes were embedded there, along with EKG remote patches that had been placed across her upper chest, just peeking out where the collar of her orange scrubs allowed. A catheter of some kind jutted from her neck at a large, tan bandage, dangling with three, blue caps at her collar bone.

Tony melted for her. "Oh, god."

The millionaire would have loved to have found something to say that would have been comforting to Kitten, but the found drew her attention to him. Tony's heart fell when her eyes went wide with horror. She stared at him, gaping perhaps as much as Tony stared at her.

Finally, a cruel realization hit Tony. He glanced down, spying the same EKG patches spotting along his upper chest and a set of catheter lines with their blue caps hanging just above them. His hand drifted to the side of his own head. His deft fingers found where his hairline should have been, skimming across cleanly shaved skin where thick tufts of dark hair had been in a palm sized patch. Tony shuddered for a moment, horrified, before forcing his hand to keep moving and exploring. Not too far from his former hairline did Tony locate it. The same, neat edge of surgical incision, the trim and precise lines of stitches and the cool, smoothness of narrow, plastic tubing.

Tony turned his head to the side to look at the clear polymer wall beside him. There, in the reflection, he saw those awful snakes of plastic knotting at the side of his head with different ports and even a catheter and hep lock for fluid injection. However, as Tony let his eyes focus intently upon his own reflection, he noted the device there differed from Kitten's, but only slightly. He let his fingers cautiously trace the lines of plastic to where they dove beneath his skin. For once in his life, Tony didn't have a smart ass remark as he curled up on the floor and squeezed his eyes shut to force out the world. They were running out of time and he knew it.

xxxx

"How soon until you're airborne?"

Pepper shrugged at Rhodes's question as she pulled her hair back and swept it up into a tight knot, prepping herself. "Under 15."

"ETA?" James questioned like the military professional he was.

She checked the Walther P99 and loaded a fresh clip into it. After all this time, training and prepping, the firearm had become her, despite truly belonging to Nick Fury. With such a wide array of weapons at his disposal with his employment at S.H.I.E.L.D., he could afford to get another one. This one, however, was Pepper's now. She cleaned it, stored it, maintained it, and even slept with it beside her bed, the safety securely on, of course.

"2100 hours," the woman answered as she replaced the gun in her shoulder holster. "Its the fastest MCT can get us there."

"Is Fury joining you?"

Pepper bit her lip and nodded. "Yes."

"Any other agents?"

The woman shook her head as she picked up the helm one of Tony's exosuits. "Nope. S.H.I.E.L.D. cannot be involved in corporate espionage and sabotage. You know that."

"But you can?"

The woman paused to reflect before giving another terse nod. "Yes." She smiled wistfully. "If I don't save Tony, who will?"

There was a moment when neither said a word before Rhodes smiled knowingly at Pepper. "Well, I'll be keeping my eye out for you."

"Thanks."

xxxx

Kitten stopped speaking when they found the implants along the side of their head. It wasn't unusual now for the girl to come back completely unconscious and be out for a few hours. Tony could feel it in the morning when she linked herself to him in the morning. They had been searching for what felt like forever for the arc reactors, but with no luck. Trying to maintain the spell that kept their minds linked together, along with however she managed to catalogue all the items in the room was wearing on her. Without any steady or deep sleep, her will and her stamina began to bow under the pressure. Yet, she always had a glib or snide remark to share, some sarcastic little snip.

Occasionally, the girl would draw a pregnant breath and look to her cellmate, as though a thought or question hung on the tip of her tongue, but Kitten swallowed it before recoiling into herself once again. She sat on the opposite side of the cell, pressed into the corner with her knees drawn up to her chin, her head bowed. She didn't even seem to have the energy or the will left in her to read her beloved _American Gods_.

All these long days, weeks, months, or who knew how long they'd been down there, the only thing that had kept the two of them hanging on had been their shared thoughts of escape. Their planning offered a small glimmer of hope, enough to hold on to their sanity. And, now, Kitten shut him off from her, cutting Tony off from the tiny spark of faith he had that they could get out of there, and together. They hadn't spoken much, nor shared any more than surface thoughts, maintaining the two man con as much as possible, but, in seeing her so silent, so still, it frightened Tony, to see even her giving up.

Finally, when Tony could not bear the silence any longer, he spoke softly, calling, "Kitten?" The girl stiffened at her name but said not a word; the man pressed. "Kitten, talk to me." She shuddered, somehow shrinking further into the corner if such a thing were possible; the very sight crushed Tony and shattered his desperate hold of their little con. "Say something." He sighed heavily, sagging wearily against his own wall. "Say something."

She drew in a deep breath and swallowed hard, finding the words difficult to form. For a moment, Tony worried that Kitten had been pushed to such a dark place, mentally and emotionally, that her wounded psyche would never come back. Yet, Kitten was, and had always been, a surprisingly girl. Kitten only whispered in a barely audible hush, but her question echoed as a grim death knoll in the inventor's mind, sending him reeling.

"Tony... what is..." The girl paused, sneering in distaste and repulsion. "Vivisection?"

The man blinked calmly, barely registering the shock that he knew _should _have been racing through him. "Where did you hear that word?"

"Obadiah," the girl admitted solemnly. "He's been talking about it for a few weeks now." She sighed. "He says, since we haven't been producing data otherwise, he's forced his hand."

The word that had sent her over the edge, that had backed her into the uncomfortable alliance with Tony Stark, her enemy. The mercenary had known about it for a time but had concealed it from Tony, even through the attempted two man con. What little hope had lingered in Tony died right then and there.

"Kitten... come here." He waited for her as the girl carefully stood on quivering legs and stumbled to sit beside him before even daring to explain. "Kitten..." Tony thought for a moment, struggling to find the best way to put it. "Kitten... it's... it's live dissection."

It should have been harder for him to admit that. In fact, a part of Tony felt distantly disgusted at how easy it had been for him to explain that to Kitten, knowing full well the implications of what the girl might be suggesting. Yet, after so long in that cell, after so long of trying to find a way out and finding nothing but disappointment behind every corner, Tony wasn't sure the thought could really surprise or shock him anymore.

"Conscious?" the girl inquired passively.

Tony gave an exhausted shrug of his shoulders. "Possibly."

At any other time, and from any other person in the world, Stark might have expected a different reaction from the girl. Instead, she just sat there in a sort of numb haze, nodding in grim acknowledgment. It should have bothered Tony, frightened him that Kitten gave no reaction to his answer, perhaps as much as his own lack of emotion at the revelation should have startled him. However, the two just sat there, side by side, broken and empty shells of the proud warriors and fierce enemies that they had once been in what seemed like an entirely different lifetime.

Hesitantly, awkwardly, Tony's arm slipped about the girl, feeling how sharp and pointed her body had become over their long captivity. For once, however, Kitten did not immediately recoil from the contact or fight back. She shivered for a second, but, then, the girl turned to Tony, snaking her delicate arms about him and pulling him close. The act caught the man off guard, but it seemed such a natural thing for either of them. Tony allowed her to nestle against him beside the sunken magnet port as he buried his head in her long, dark tresses. Her reassuring scent of tinder and fever tickled his nostrils even underneath the overwhelming stench of their daily antiseptic showers. Her hands curled into balled fists at his back, and Tony just few her tighter against him instinctively.

The very last shreds of hatred between the two washed away along with the remaining vestiges of their old lives. Tony Stark was no longer the invincible Ironman, millionaire hero inventor fighting evil in his suit of armor, much as Kitten was no longer a shadowrunner, a brutal mercenary for hire lurking just beyond the twilight. They were no longer bitter enemies. They were just Kitten and Tony, too terrified to hell anything anymore. No hate, no sorrow, no despair, nothing. Neither uttered a word for some time; neither moved a muscle.

They sat, hanging their mutilated heads in mutual defeat.

xxxx

Pepper Potts watched as the Mitsuhama Computer Technologies Corporate Security Fast Response Team readied themselves in the jet. There were twelve of them altogether, not a one that Pepper recognized ever before. They wore all black tactical suits, full body armor, really. They said not a word as they got ready.

Pepper glanced to Fury. "How much farther?"

"Half hour."

xxxx

"Kitten?" Tony stroked her hair, cautious to avoid the penetrating surgical ports and cannulae in the side of her head, now that he could summon enough coherent thought to say something to her, anything.

"Hmm?" the girl murmured without moving.

He shook his head gravely, closing his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

The corner of Tony's mouth curved in but the glimmer of a tight smile of exasperation. "For everything." The man's heart contracted. "For this. For what happened to you before." Tony gestured with a waving hand, completely drained. "This has my fault written all over it."

"It's as much my fault as it is yours," Kitten lamented, relaxing into him.

"I guess."

They sat in silence for some time, holding and being held. Their muscles occasionally tightened with a deep need. There was nothing sexual about the action nor was this the comfortable embrace of two friends. This was the desperate grip of two traumatized individuals seeking some human comfort to confirm their existence before their demise, some last ditch effort to feel alive before death. Neither had realized before just how starved for physical contact and some form of affection until they sat there, clinging to one another as if for life its self.

"Tony?" the girl broke the silence once more, her voice echoing in the cell.

"Yeah?"

Kitten turned her head slightly, enough to look up into his dark eyes. "I'm sorry, too. I'm sorry I tried to kill you... a few times."

Tony couldn't resist a small, half-hearted laugh at that. "Yeah, me too."

After what seemed like an eternity, Kitten spoke again, a bit more confidently this time and only inn his mind, her voice filling his thoughts and snaking about his brain serenely. _"Tony?"_

"Hmm?"

_"The arc reactor. How long can you survive without it?" _

Tony blinked at the question. "I don't... not long, I don't think."

Kitten nodded against his chest. _"We have a choice?"_

_"What choice?" _He questioned back mentally.

_"They're going to kill us one way or the other. They'll take what we are and turn us into weapons. Those motherfuckers'll use whatever they find in our bodies to make a weapon. You know it's true." _The girl nuzzled against his chest, craving the presence of another body against her. _"We can go quietly and let them do that, or..."_

Tony's vision flared a brilliant, fiery crimson, and he dimly recognized the the phoenix's presence in the invisible world of Kitten. The warmth settled over her, enfolding her. The heat spread between the pair, radiating out from Kitten's heart and cascading over them. Unseen eagle down swaddled the despairing pair as great wings encircled them. The last time Tony faced a choice like this had been in the depths of the mountain caves, he'd been alone and terrified. Now, with Kitten and the phoenix inside of her, Tony could only feel a sort of odd acceptance settling over him.

_"Or we die on our terms," _Tony finished for her.

He felt her nod against his chest. _"I know what I want." _Kitten chewed on the inside of her cheek nervously and returned her gaze to him, her dark eyes questioning. _"I won't do anything you don't..."_

"No." The man gripped her tighter. _"No._" He tried to manage one of his trade-marked grins for her, but it had been so long with so little hope that even that small part of Tony seemed lost forever, leaving only a mangled, twisted excuse of a smile in its place. _"I don't give up easy."_

Kitten slipped from his arms and sat back. She seemed calm and serene somehow, even as her hands reached down for the cables attached to the electromagnet in his chest. When her fingers curled about the cords, Tony's mind hazily swam with calculations of residual magnetic charge and pondering just how long the magnet Obadiah had installed would last. There was no telling, and the thought sent ice water through his veins. Tony tensed, clenching his muscles, but, when he looked up, Kitten waited, frozen in place.

_"WIll it... hurt?"_

Tony nodded quickly.

She placed her other hand upon his chest and whispered the words to a prayer that he could no hear, as a warmth flooded his heart. _"The pain won't slow you down." _The girl paused, biting her lower lip. _"Are you so sure, Tony Stark?"_

The man drew a deep breath, glancing to Kitten even before she could sign his death warrant.

Kitten grinned madly. "Then let's do this."

xxxx

The building seemed more imposing now that they were almost on top of it. The Ares Industries facility consisted of a large, sleek, black box that stretched from a wooded area about the base and towered alongside the bustling highway 285, which was packed the traffic even at nearly midnight as the helicopter circled the building and getting a last minute surveil before streaking across the sky to land in Perimeter Mall just on the other side of Ashford-Dunwoody Road from the location. The fast response team said nothing as they overlooked the building, studying all the guard posts and other locations that had already been pointed out to them on several maps. Pepper merely watched with wide eyes, her heart fluttering in her chest.

Fury had pulled quite a few strings and used up quite a lot of Tony's money to secure their impromptu landing strip at the posh Perimeter Mall, yet it would be worth it. They touched down to an empty parking deck that had been long abandoned for the night aside from the little Toyota that probably belong to a janitor or security guard. Pepper mused about how handy a friend like Nick Fury came in through the whole landing.

The fast response team poured from the helicopter, along with Fury, who paused to turn to Pepper and stop her from climbing out after them. "You've come far enough, Miss Potts."

"What?" She blurted out in shock.

"You didn't really think I was going to allow a barely trained civilian to go on a high stakes black ops maneuver, now did you?" the colonel countered smartly. "Stay on the chopper."

"With all due respect, Agent Fury, I funded this little excursion, and I'm going to see to it that this happens, even if it means shooting you myself," the woman snarled back, drawing her P99 and shoving it in his face. "Now, if you would get the hell out of my way, I've got an employer to rescue, a mercenary to kill, and two evil megacorporations to take down in one night and in one shot. But that's with all due respect, of course."

Fury smirked and shook his head. "You have got one hell of a death wish, Miss Potts."

"Yeah, well we can chat about that when this is all over," the woman growled under her breath.

The agent nodded approvingly. "Lets move out."

**XXXX**

Author's Notes: ACKS! It's been a while, but I've had class (which is boring) and work (which is even worse), invading my life along with two other drabbles (**Magic Bullet **for _CSI_and one for _SGA _that has yet to be named but will likely involve werewolves of sorts) Sorry to keep you hanging. And, I promise, not OC. Just building.


	30. Sprite

**DUMPSHOCK - SPRITE**

Tony Stark watched with a combination of grim fascination and mild horror as Kitten studied the cables where they attached to the electromagnet port in his chest. The runner took a moment to check to ensure that she would be pulling out anything important such as, say, a lung or his heart, carefully prodding at the cables with a cold detachment. He held his breath, tensing slightly, though as her nimble fingers reached deep into the socket to find the connections. The girl glanced up at him for but a moment, and, although he really wasn't looking forward to what was about to happen, he gave a curt nod.

"Alright," Kitten said under her breath.

He felt her touch and manipulation of the catches against the metal as a mild pressure in his ribcage, yet nothing more. Tony clenched his muscles when she seemed to find the neatly crimped adapters and clamped down upon them. He let his head loll back, not wanting to watch the actual act at all and instead trying to find an interesting patch of cieling, right as Kitten began to tug on the cables.

Tony drew in gasping breath. "Waitwaitwait!!"

xxxx

They moved from the helicopter as a team, crossing the deserted parking deck and moving swiftly. The fast response team Mitsuhama had provided were all silence and stealth, moving with a cool grace despite the heavy tactical armor that seemed like it should have hampered their movements between the weight and shape. Yet the team wore it like a second skin, striding evenly together with a strange and unsettling precision. Fury kept back, letting them take point ahead of him for a moment until they got to the bottom floor of the parking garage.

Fury pointed to the building beside their target, to the wooded area that ringed the corporate complex and gestured with a hand signal that Pepper roughly translated as, _"Circle around."_

Half the team broke away from the main group without a word, completely obedient to a fault to Nick Fury's orders and the inflight briefing. Pepper kept a keen eye on them as the five men just slipped into the shadows, swallowed up by the darkness as though they had never existed. Meanwhile, Fury gave a quick, staccato gesture to the remaining men, and they moved ahead in neat formation to the nearest manhole cover to pry it up and begin their descent into the dank tunnels beneath Perimeter and the corporate offices.

Only once the last had gone down the ladder, did Fury say anything, in a cold monotone, the professional disconnect of a soldier in battle. "Stay close to me, Miss Potts. Wouldn't want you to lose your pretty little head."

Pepper glared hotly at the S.H.I.E.L.D. as he climbed down onto the ladder. "You have more to worry about Obadiah losing his head if I run into him."

He paused to shake his head. "I'm not worried about Ares or Stark Industries."

"MCT?" Pepper breathed almost hesitantly.

Fury frowned. "They're mercenaries, Miss Potts. I don't expect them to remain on our side for very long if offered a better deal."

And, with that, they climbed down into the dark in silence.

xxxx

"Cold feet?" Kitten teased in a husky breath, her hand still sunk into the port and fingers still holding to the adapters that connected the cables to the electromagnet.

Tony shook his head quickly, staring past her and to the wall behind her. "If we're going to do this, we're only getting one chance at this, right?" He waited as Kitten turned her head to the side and gave a nod of concession. "Then we had better make it count."

The mage glanced over her shoulder to the wall behind her, to where Tony's gaze fell. The cameras were still there. They had been there, in the dark and in the cell for so long, that both of them had forgotten about the cctv cameras that had been monitoring their every move for so very long. The tattoo on the nape of Kitten's neck flared a hot orange, as unseen flames licked beneath her skin. While Tony could not hear it himself, he knew the phoenix sang in the girl's ears, begging for her to loose her magic upon the offending devices.

"No," Tony breathed, grabbing her arm sharply.

She glanced to him with a pointed look, her eyes narrow and feral at being held back, but the inventor just shook his head. "No, we do this right."

"What did you have in mind?"

Tony closed his eyes and concentrated, feeling the hum of electricity and energy to the building about them. He saw the glittering green node of the lock and the little sprite of a program awaiting him there, still holding tight to the access codes befitting how precious of information it really was. Tony skipped that and went for the cameras, following the information. His mind drifted along with the current of electrons, seeking and scanning until he fixed the location of the next node. It wasn't too far away, but not near enough to be easy to work with. Tony could have tried to disable it, but, with the distance, it was a chance he wasn't ready to even attempt yet. Instead, he brought up the information in his own mind, watching as Kitten paced the cell and as his body just reclined in the corner. He tracked her motion, memorizing the motion of the girl before instinctively planting another string of code to replicate the same repeated images. An old gambit, but hopefully one that won't be noticed for at least long enough to get a move on, a joke that he couldn't help but appreciate at that moment.

He turned his attention to the node and took the access code from the sprite. It seemed such a simple thing now to just thread the code back through the electronic lock. The lock released. He looked to the girl as she nodded approvingly.

"What about the other lock?" Kitten inquired.

Tony shrugged to her with a wild eyed smirk. "You figure that one out."

The girl turned and grinned from ear to ear like a cheshire cat. She shrunk back towards Tony, even as the phoenix tattoo upon her back glowed brightly, flaring with a fire that was both real and intangible at the same time. She put up a hand in front of her, and, as murmured words graced her lips, the air seemed to shimmer and condense in front of them.

"Portable wall. Neat trick," Tony offered in a teasing praise.

Kitten gave a tired shrug. "Yeah, you can go ahead and think that if this fucking works."

"If what works..." Tony furrowed his brow, but she had already begun to murmur the incantation, leaving him only enough time to swear, "Shit."

The inventor didn't get to really react as the air abruptly swirled in front of them, even as he lunged to grab Kitten and maybe stop her. Tony had never had the instance to actually see Kitten's magic really work, never truly study the mechanics of it. And, how could he? After all, logically, magic did not exist. But, now, faced with final moments, the man could not help but stare as the world slowed down and froze into one crystalline moment in time and space for them, once perfect millisecond. Perhaps it wasn't even that long; perhaps just a nanosecond, truly. Yet, in that briefest of moments in between heartbeats, Tony thought he heard the phoenixes of old, thought he saw the days when there were several of them, blessing man with their presence and drifting through the world alongside mortals. It started as a spark, just a tiny flash of light, but Tony could have sworn that the miniscule flare had wings before it burst outward in searing flame and a burst of white hot fire. The world exploded around them with a deafening boom, rushing through the wall and knocking the shadowrunner back. Bright light, crisp as lightning, blinded Tony.

For a second, the thought hit Tony before the blast did. _"Chunky salsa..."_

All this time masquerading as a superhero, fighting bad guys, vanquishing evil doers, after everything he had survived, Tony Stark had been granted so much time to contemplate the various ways he could and would likely die. Chunky salsa had never really made it on that list. It was a thought that could have made Tony laugh if he had either the time nor the right mind to do so at that moment.

xxxx

The tunnels were dark, dank, and claustrophobic, crushing down on Pepper. She would have preferred after the whole Iron Monger incident to have never been in a tiny, enclosed space ever again- just in case a hulking machine monster should come crashing through the darkness after her. Granted, she really had more to worry about drifting along in the ankle deep, putrid water that gently ebbed through the sewer or perhaps the glittering beads that were most assuredly the eyes of rats, but Pepper tried to keep her mind off of those as well. Instead, she focused on the back of Nick Fury as he hung behind the Mitsuhama security team, keeping close to the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.

Fury gestured to Pepper with a flat, halting hand signal down and at his side, suggesting that she stop right where she was. Pepper did. Fury dropped to one knee, and Pepper followed suit as several of the Mitsuhama men did as well.

One of the security team broke from the group to trot ahead of them, into the darkness, toting something small at his side. He disappeared in to the void ahead. Pepper reached up for her night vision goggles to pull them down and over her eyes. As she did, the world lit up about her as clear as day, highlighting not only the Mitsuhama team but also all the nasty, unsavory things in the sewer that Pepper had not really wanted to acknowledge existed just yet. The corporate soldier knelt at something in the tunnel, setting down his parcel and rushing back with long, hurried strides.

Fury drew his weapon and held it at the ready. Pepper mirrored his actions, keeping the P99 down and at her side. She gave him a quick glance, seeing nothing but a steely cold look to the soldier's face, ready for whatever lay beyond in the Ares Industries facility. Ahead of them, an explosion rocked the tunnel, but it was more of a heavy bang than a true fiery blast. A door swung open ahead of them. Pepper nodded to herself. Fury might be ready, but that didn't mean she was.

The woman swallowed whatever fear may have remained as they stole through the ruined steel door and into the sewers below Ares Industries.

xxxx

There is a moment after most explosions when the people involved in such have little to no recollection of what had happened, nor any coherent thought. Tony blinked as his head swam. There were sounds about him, dull and almost distant, as though they were suddenly underwater. The world moved about him on a slow turn, as everything had been flooded with a viscous liquid, sluggish almost. Heavy, fat droplets of water pelted him from the ceiling, plastering the orange coveralls to his body. Tongues of fire licked in lazy, hypnotic curls as Tony's ears rang with a deafening roar. Chocking heat blazed through the cell as smoke swirled before Tony, hot and acrid, stinging at his nose and eyes.

To his side, Kitten slowly clambered to her knees, clutching the left side of her head, and thankfully the side away from the surgical ports, with her hand as blood slipped between her fingers. She winced slightly from the contact, pulling her hand back to study the palm before swearing. The girl shook her head, as though loosing some disorientation, and Tony realized that, when whatever intangible wall she had erected failed during the explosion, the mercenary must have been flung backwards by the concussion blast and into the wall. He surveyed the damage quickly and noted how lucky the two of them were to only escape with a minor gash upon her forehead.

However, when red fire alarms blared, all sentiments of "luck" drained from Tony as he reached out to her and snatch the girl's arm. "Kitten, what the hell were you thinking?! You just blew any cover we had!"

She didn't answer, really, save to point ahead of her with a bony finger, to the door to their prison. Tony glanced up at it for the first time to really see what had happened, and, when the smoke cleared enough for him to truly focus on whatever it was Kitten had wanted him to see, the inventor could have whooped for joy. The blast had been a targeted one, far larger than Kitten had intended, and aimed right for the lock of the door. The clear polymer melted and bowed, bending at all awkward angles and bunching outward in the place where a physical lock had once been. The electric locks would have kept the door securely in place with electromagnets if Kitten had tried that by herself. But, now, with both locks disabled, the door was open.

Tony didn't have time to shout or laugh like he wanted to when Kitten's hand drifted down and jerked the cables from the electromagnet port with a hard, quick pull.

xxxx

The team swept ahead of them, guns drawn and cautious to a fault. They ducked behind corners, checking every angle carefully. Fury and Pepper hung back, letting the Mitsuhama security personnel earn the money she had ponied up for them from Stark's funds. Occasionally, the fast response team barked soft utterances at one another in Japanese.

They moved through the sewers to a ladder. Up went one of Mitsuhama's men, pushing ever so slightly on the hinged, steel door overhead to slip a tiny camera through the crack. He looked down to what could have been a phone or pda, likely to check video footage, before nodding and giving the all clear. Slowly they each climbed up in turn, Pepper last, forming a circle about the door to the sewers before shutting it behind them. They moved silently, stalking towards the only entrance to that room before repeating the camera checking process and stepping out into a long, lonely, white corridor.

Fury gave a quick nod. "Intel suggests that he's on this level."

Pepper drew a breath and held it, even as they began to fan out along the hall, reflected like dark shadows in the gleaming, white tiles. They were close now, so very close.

xxxx

Obadiah Stane savored the little things in life with equal relish, if not more, than the major matters. His short incarceration in that dismal excuse of a prison in the base of S.H.I.E.L.D. Central had only served to whet his appetite for fine foods, exquisite liquors, and delicately crafted arts or literature. In the wake of his liberation, Obadiah often spent time enjoying the various wines and liquors that would have made Tony Stark green with envy, including the current merlot he sipped with only mild interest compared to the satisfaction he felt at a job well done. He pulled a cigar from his pocket to enjoy that along with the wine.

In just eight short hours, Tony Stark would be, for all intents and purposes, dead. Obadiah would never have to worry about that sniveling little punk interrupting or stopping his projects ever again. And, in addition to that, there was no telling what volumes of information could be had by the study of technomancer physiology. There was still so much about the technomancers that wasn't known yet, and Tony offered the perfect opportunity to dissect and study without costing the partnership their prize specimen in Jonas. Just eight hours to go and, while Tony Stark would be over, the real work could truly begin. Then, the world would change.

He turned to Jonas and Aurelius, raising his glass to them to toast in mock solemnity as his lips curled into a downright demonic grin. "To Tony Stark. He was a great man."

Jonas smirked. "To Stark."

Even Aurelius nodded as the three of them sipped their wine. The technomancer circled the office, along a slow perimeter. Aurelius had been kind enough to provide excellent office space for them at the very top of the facility, overlooking the land about them with wide, sweeping windows. Even Stane had to give the man credit for his taste. Carved furniture in lavish mahogany with scrolled inlays. Bookshelves lined with ancient tomes. Sculpture of various styles and periods.

Obadiah opened his mouth to say something else to his partners, when a security guard burst in through the heavy doors. "Sirs!"

"What is it?" Aurelius demanded in a stern tone.

The guard blinked. He couldn't have been that old, perhaps only in his late twenties to early thirties. He looked downright terrified of the three before him.

"Sir... I'm sorry. We appear to have a security breach." The guard swallowed before correcting himself. "Actually, two breaches."

"Pull it up," Aurelius ordered.

Several holographic displays about them automatically as Jonas accessed the server. The technomancer autopiloted the security feeds to direct them images towards the supposed security breaches. Jonas's finesse with the wireless world about them never ceased to amaze Obadiah Stane. The boy could damn near hack just about any server without lifting a finger; he was a prize specimen, one to be cherished and cared for like a son.

The holographic images settled over the holding cell that Tony Stark and Kitten occupied first. The inventor sat, slumped on the floor, looking all too weak and pathetic, while Kitten paced in clear agitation. Jonas's thin lips settled into a deep and intent frown as he seemed to study the coding relayed to him through the electromagnet fields about them.

The boy shook his head. "Data's been tampered with."

Environmental readings pulled up beside the holographic image, displaying temperature readings flaring off the chart; Obadiah growled under his breath, "Kitten."

"There's more," Jonas whispered as he dove deeper into the security servers.

Another holographic image appeared of the sublevel corridors. This time, it was of an armed force in matching black armor stealing through the halls, firearms training from the left and to the right. They moved together as a cohesive unit, flanking as though exceptionally well trained. And, much to Obadiah's satisfaction, to the back of the group, lurked none other than Pepper Potts, looking entirely out of sorts with a pistol in her hands and her eyes steely with determination that didn't quite seem becoming of her, alongside Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. Delicious shivers rolled down Obadiah's spine as he spied the woman and the agent moving through the complex, into his- no, _their_- territory. And oh the tricks he had up his own sleeve.

Obadiah smirked to himself and glanced to Jonas. "Deal with it."

The boy grinned malevolently. "Gladly."

xxxx

Agony stole Tony's breath away when Kitten roughly tore the cables from his chest. It had been so very long since he had felt those little shards of metal slipping through his veins and dancing closer to his heart, tearing their way through his body, that the man had almost forgotten what it had felt like the first time around. Tiny black spots drifted across his vision. But there wasn't time for pain. In a heart beat, he was up and at Kitten's side, prying at the cooling hole blasted into the door where a lock had once been.

Alarms wailed all about them as red lights flashed in warning tones as water continued to rain down upon them in heavy droplets. Kitten's grip on the door failed, slipping along the smooth, slick polymer, but Tony found purchase where she could not. He tore at the thing, dragging the door almost clean off.

The pain should have been crippling. He knew it should. Tony had felt it once before, but this was different. It was horrible, agonizing, yes, but not crippling like it should have been. Even as the two bolted from the cell, his feet moved surprisingly swiftly beneath him, covering ground far faster than he would have thought possible.

Tony scanned the halls wildly as their bare feet pattered down the long corridors. Kitten reeled left, partly dragging Tony with her along the way. He glanced about them, taking in the twists and turns as the runner darted through the halls down an only mildly familiar maze. This had to be the places that Kitten knew. Then, as she reeled down a corner, Kitten dropped back to his side, letting Tony lead her as her memories of the corridors obviously fuzzed. No matter. This was part of the facility that Tony knew well enough of his own accord. He had always thought the door at the end of the hall led to salvation, but, judging from where Kitten and his own mental map led Tony, it was far from it. The man shuffled loose her grip on him to take her by the wrist and lead Kitten now.

The whipped about a corner, and everything in the world froze for a moment. Waiting for them, in two neat, ordered rows like a firing squad, weapons aimed, was a security team. Tony slammed to a halt along with Kitten, as her slick, wet feet slipped on the tile slightly. Tony snatched her by the wrist and dragged her back behind the corner with him just before the team opened fire in a hail of bullets. She slammed into the wall beside him, panting hard and blinking as the volley ceased. The man took a quick peek about the corner to check what the team was doing, only to be rewarded with a second volley and a spray of concrete dust where a well aimed cluster of semi-automatic fire drove into the wall beside his head. Tony recoiled back instinctively before a third volley could come.

As his heart pumped faster, throbbing against his rib cage, Tony felt one of the metal shards slip, sliding closer and closer. The tiny barbs danced and moved, shifting towards his heart. Tony's felt his hand reach up and press upon his sternum just above the magnet port, as though that would somehow stave it off, but he knew the truth. There wasn't much time left.

Tony had vowed when he became Ironman not to take another human life if at all possible. The criminals of the world deserved justice as much as the victims deserved to see justice served. And he was most certainly not an executioner. Yet, when Tony turned to the mage at his side, the man knew there was no other choice. He saw the phoenix in her eyes, the glow at her back, and the clenching of her fists as the girl tried to hold back what she so desperately wanted to do, and his voice dropped to a low hiss, fueled with a deep rage that had built up over however long they had been held, begging to be vented. It was the same rage Kitten had felt towards him upon her previous escape those years ago.

"Do it."

xxxx

An explosion flashed at the end of the hall, sending the Mitsuhama FRT ducking behind the corner and shoving Pepper out of the way. Sound and fury raced through the corridor with nothing to absorb the shock. The concussion wave of hot air slammed Pepper firmly in the chest even before she hit the ground around the corner. When she did hit the cold tile, it was just in time to see a cloud of black, choking smoke and fire race through the hall they had just been in. The FRT members had been swift enough to just step out of the way of a grenade without a problem before grouping and shifting back into formation, around the corner in neat pairs with their own reply of steady gunfire constantly pulling back in between shots to keep the targets moving.

Beside her, Nick Fury crouched, looking all too pleased with himself even as he glanced to Pepper. "Looks like we've got company, Miss Potts."

**XXXX**

**Author's Notes: **Well, yeah, it's another cliffy. Sorry. You were supposed to get two chapters at once over the weekend, but, since the DOT currently has me trapped at my house (don't ask. It involves a Poland Spring truck, a sinkhole, a big storm, and the most poorly planned storm drain repair/replacement project I think evah! You do the math), you guys get a new chappie. Hooray for you!


	31. System Admin

**DUMPSHOCK - SYSTEM ADMIN**

It had been such a simple plan, so simple that Pepper Potts could hardly fathom where everything had gone so terribly wrong. Break into a facility operated by Ares Industries to save Tony Stark. Kill Kitten. Get out of the place and blow it to kingdom come if time warranted. After that, head home for a nice cup of tea, a well earned massage, and most likely a good verbal lashing directed to Tony for going off as half-cocked as he had and for worrying her like that.

Upon further inspection of this plan, as Pepper hunkered down behind the hulking frame of Nick Fury, the woman could see just how flawed that plan had really been. In all honesty, any semblance of a plan on her part seemed to sum up to "we're going to go in and fuck shit up" at that point. Pepper couldn't blame the plan for going to hell when there wasn't really a solid plan to begin with. It both pissed her off to no end and worried the woman. The situation quickly broke down into a one way ticket of sorts towards whatever happened as the fast response team seemed pinned down at a t-junction with Ares-Stark security forces sweeping down the halls in a rain of gunfire, steadily advancing towards the intersection where the intruders lurked.

While it mildly frightened and disturbed Pepper, it only seemed to enthrall Nick Fury, as though he lived for nothing but these desperate, near suicidal moments in life. He bore a coy, thin smile, thoroughly enjoying the fray unfolding about them. He detached from the man group, gesturing for Pepper to keep close at his heels like a trained lap dog and leaving the MCT team to watch their back. He only went a few yards away to a door, rearing back and throwing his heavily booted foot into the lock. The door slammed open, and Fury charged in, gun up and aiming across the empty space.

He made a beaconing sweep of his hand, calling for Pepper to join him. The room was small, just a dimly lit, basic laboratory. Pepper slipped into the room behind Fury, her eyes wide with wonder at the scene about her. It looked like any other laboratory in the Stark Industries facilities, all sterile, white walls and stainless steel tables, only this one hadn't been intended for mere chemistry. There was a rather sinister looking chair in the middle of the room with both leather cuffs at the sides and eyebolts. There were spots of what looked like dried blood staining the side of one of the restraints. Pepper winced inwardly at the thought of what might have gone on this room, her mind filling with all the almost unimaginable possibilities of what could have happened to Tony there.

She turned to Fury just in time to see him cross the room and slip into shadows. Pepper shook of her initial disgust to follow him out of the light and into the darkness. He pawed about before him for a moment before finding something and holding tight to it. Papper saw the bulk of his shadow hunch over whatever it was as he right hand drew up his pistol.

He turned to her, and, though she could not see his eyes, Pepper felt his gaze upon her as the man whispered in a solemn hush. "We circle around. Catch them with their pants down."

"You knew this was here?" Pepper hissed back in both annoyance and revulsion that Fury could have known such a place existed in any of the Ares Industries or Stark Industries sites. "What did you do? Memorize the whole place?"

She could hear his smile. "Nope. It was a lucky guess."

"So you say."

Fury spoke softly to her. "You ready?"

Pepper drew in a deep, controlling breath and let it out slowly as she held up her Walther at the ready. "As I'll ever be."

"On three," Fury breathed. "One... two..."

Pepper gave a nod and counted down the last number for him. "Three."

xxxx

Explosions need never be large nor small to be effective. They need only catch a body off guard at just the right moment, and that was precisely what Kitten's fiery little outburst did. Tony had covered his ears at the last minute as the girl whipped about the corner, the incantation already slipping across her tongue as her eyes flared with a flicker of their own. Her glare met the patrol with a dark intent, and fire lashed out from her, racing towards whatever lay around the corner in a burst of heat and fire with a deafening boom. The shadowrunner ducked back beside the inventor as a dark cloud swept out from the ring of the explosion with an almost feline grace.

Yet, there was still moment beyond them in the corridor; there were more soldiers coming now. More strangers to take them away and return to that dark place where they would go back to waiting to die. He could hear them, even now.

"That's the only way I know." Tony whispered to the girl at his side. "You got any other idea which way to go?"

Kitten shook her head fiercely. "Nope. Just the one."

"So..." Tony led with a waving gesture.

The girl glared. "So what?"

"Hit 'em again."

Kitten glanced up, snarling right in his face. "I'm not the fucking Energizing bunny, dumbfuck." Even through the hurled insult, the girl looked tired somehow, pale, perhaps from the exertion it took to craft her spells or perhaps from their long captivity as a droplet of crimson leaked from her nose. Either way, she scrubbed the blood away with the back of her hand and shrugged, "Can't keep doing that." She swallowed, perhaps choking back more blood in the back of her throat or just collecting herself. "Not if I'm going to be of any use."

"I know."

Tony glanced about them and spied a door just to the side. He recognized it. Not from his own mental map, but from Kitten's. He had passed it a few times, but never entered it before. Yet, at least that would put a door between them and the security force as they approached. Tony grabbed Kitten brusquely by the arm and shoved her towards the door. She struggled, slightly, but Tony had caught her off guard, still mildly dazed from the effort of the spell. He pushed her through the door and closed it behind them. His hands went to lock the door, but, sadly, there was no lock there, no bolt or even twist. Tony felt sweat rolling down his face as he looked about him in the dim light for something he could edge under the doorknob.

"Kitten, help me..." he called softly, but Kitten didn't answer. "Kitten!"

When Tony craned his head to yell at her, his heart stopped for but the briefest of moments at the sight spread before him. The lab was large, far larger than Kitten's memories had detailed for him from the map, but that could have just been a false impression from her exhaustion and the drugs Obadiah's goons pumped into her on a daily basis. It was dimly lit by a few fluorescent lights sunk into holes in the ceiling through a mess of surgical lighting and supplies, illuminating a series of long, stainless steel tables. Each table bore a still, lifeless body, so pale and thin that they looked almost fake where the skin stretched across their ribs. Each one of them had a patch of their head shaved in the same spot as Tony and Kitten, each with their own series of surgical ports.

But, that wasn't what had caught Kitten's eye. The girl had drifted almost dreamily away from Tony, swayed on hips that should have been elegant but, with how bony she had become, only appeared awkward and pathetic. She had a downright forlorn expression upon her face, solemn and almost grieving as the mercenary shifted her weight to lean close to one of the corpses. Sadly, Kitten looked so thin, so gaunt and pale herself, that her waxen features could have belonged to any of the bodies spread out there under green surgical covers. The body spread before her had an curvy build to it, but lean in a way, with refined features to the face and a rich, ebony skin tone. Tony's jaw just about dropped out of his skull when he recognized the face so still in death. Sister Cyanide.

"Kitten..." he whispered.

The shadowrunner shook her head, before leaning close to the corpse of Sister Cyanide, Cyan Beauchamp. It had never occurred to Stark that the bar owner was either a mage or a technomancer like Jonas or Kitten, but, upon seeing her there, he could not deny the possibility. He recalled the time in the bar, when Kitten chased him home before that last fight in his home, the dizzy, lurching feeling of intoxication without actually being drunk, and Tony could not deny it at all. Sister Cyanide had been a mage, a witch like Kitten, and, now, she was dead as a doornail, cold and stiff.

A noise ripped Tony's attention back to the door. He pressed his ear to the thing, listening carefully. The guards were drawing closer, daring to come after them now.

"Kitten... we've got to go."

The girl shook her head tersely and scrambled to snatch up the medical files that sat at the feet of each of the corpses before rushing back to Tony's side. Tony pricked both a mental and physical ear to the corridor through the door. They were security guards for Stark Industries as well as Ares Industries. Tony Stark had personally overseen the creation of particular weapons and communications devices for his own personnel. Everything from the computer tablets that Pepper so loved, to the radio earbuds that many of the personnel used. All Tony had to do was focus to figure out what they had as the footsteps drew nearer.

A voice bellowed in the corridor. "TONY STARK. AMATISTA LABROPOULOS. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP."

The girl sneered at an apparently particularly offensive floor tile and spat. "Fucking corp sec bastards."

"WE DON'T WANT TO HURT YOU," the voice continued.

Kitten shook her head and chortled oddly. "He's lying."

"I know, Captain Obvious," Tony snapped, his mind reaching out and suddenly snagging upon a series of tiny little nodes, all bobbing towards their little corner.

The girl growled under her breath. "Hope you've got a bright idea."

"COME OUT NOW."

Tony's mind snared upon the nodes as they approached slowly with hesitant footsteps and grinned from ear to ear, knowing precisely was to do. It was a little known fact save in select circles that, for a time, Stark Industries had worked in the development of experiment and nonlethal weaponry, designed to hurt, to incapacitate, but to not cause any physical damage to the victim. Those particular subdivisions of research and development thrived in the mid to late 1990s in a reactionary movement to the WTO protests turned riots and the school shootings, as law enforcement sought less damaging means to subdue their suspects. Tony's personal favorite projects from the division involved particular frequencies as an audio weapon, particularly when he contemplated the rumors that a precise frequency could cause spontaneous orgasms in women- an effect that he had yet to prove to his great disappointment due to the subtle nuances to the required frequencies.

Yet, what Tony planned didn't exactly require subtly. It only required force. Tony licked his lips and pushed with his mind, stabbing outwards with a flare of coding targeted at each of the approaching nodes. There were grunts of paint and surprise from around the corner along with the scattered sound of a few of guards dropping to their knees. High pitched frequencies at high amplitudes seldom needed any finesse to incapacitate. The inventor grinned madly from ear to ear, his head throbbing dully from the effort while metal shards continued to pulse their way through his body.

He glanced to Kitten as the shadowrunner peered through the cracked door. She grabbed his wrist and dragged him with her into the corridor that was now occupied by a group of heavily armed guards writhing under the pressing sound but without the keen sense to mind to just take off their helmets. Sharp, piercing noises of ultra high frequencies occasionally had that effect on people. As they threaded through the corporate goons,Tony made for damned sure to switch to a different frequency, one he knew all too well would cause a short-term paralysis, just long enough for them to escape. Kitten at least had the sound mind to reach down as they bolted, her nimble hand snatching one of the fallen assault rifles.

The girl kicked hard at the helmets of one of the guards, knocking the thing clean off the incapacitated man's head. She cocked back on the AK, holding it up to her shoulder and taking aim at point blank rage at the pale face below. Tony froze, his blood running cold. The guards were incapacitated; they didn't need to die. His mind acknowledged this fact while, in his heart, he felt nothing but a cold detachment to the murders he knew Kitten had in mind.

"Kitten, don't," the man ordered simply, flatly. "Don't waste the time." Yet when Kitten ignored him, taking her aim, Tony's voice dropped to but a breath. "I'm not a murderer."

She sniffed, fingering the trigger almost lovingly. "_You're_ not, but _they _are."

xxxx

Pepper Potts seemed a woman of infinite surprise and possibilities at times in Nick Fury's eyes. All throughout her long time training, Fury had hurled countless different weapons and techniques in her direction. While there were times that he could see her frustration at her own shortcomings, Pepper had never failed in her own, dogged determination. She excelled in places that Fury wouldn't have ever imagined in so many different ways, hurrying to him into this world of espionage and urban warfare as though it were as familiar and comfortable to her as a boardroom and office.

The pair plunged out of the door at the same instance. Out of the corner of his eye, Fury kept a keen watch on Pepper as they opened fire on the back of the security team that had their MCT fast response team pinned down around the corner. He saw her quickly take aim and fire off a few rounds in quick succession, following his lead. As Fury unloaded his clip in near record time, he took down five guards to the three that Pepper took out. Her shots were carefully timed and placed, each precise to within three inches from the center mark. The security team never had a chance against Pepper and Fury.

The agent looked down to Pepper as the last guard fell, and noticed something strange. There seemed a faint hesitation post-killing to her. Her eyes were wide with both wonder at her own skill and the death she had just dealt to perfect strangers, people Pepper knew nothing about. Yet, to Fury's infinite wonder, the woman merely steeled herself, her pert lips thinning to not quite a frown but an indistinguishable expression as the woman stood tall. She gave a sharp nod and checked her firearm before holding it down and to the side. Those crisp eyes of hers met his, and, for a terrible moment, there seemed no emotion there save a cold disregard to the homicide she had just committed.

But, then, Pepper let out a sigh, smiled slightly, and breathed, "So, shall we?"

Fury grinned madly from ear to ear as he switched clips for his firearm and as the fast response team came to join them. "My dear, I thought you'd never ask."

xxxx

Tony Stark had never been so close to such brutality in his life except for those dark months in Afghanistan, and, as soon as Kitten began to unload in the security team he had brought to her knees, Tony felt rocketed right back to that time. He felt time stand still as she moved slowly, methodically, from man to man, with such a stark disconnect that she seemed almost robotic in a way. Kitten paused at each to put a bullet between their eyes, hardly giving them any regard.

The was nothing quite like a large caliber round fired between the eyes of a prone victim on tile floor. It was both grotesque and macabrely beautiful at the same time. As Kitten fired, there came a spray of crimson across her, as grey bits of brain matter, viscera, skull fragments and blood splattered over the white tiles. Tony found himself sickly hypnotized by how heavy and think the blood seemed, so starkly contrasting against the ivory sea of pristine tile. By the time Kitten had finished her grizzly task, not a one of them was recognizable without blood testing.

He should have felt angry at her, outraged at the deaths she had so coldly and callously handed out to men who had just been following orders, just doing what they had been told to do. After all, hadn't there been a time when Tony would have killed Kitten on sight as well just because she seemed so monstrous and barbaric? The men sprawled out on the floor before them, each oozing a spreading, crimson slick, had probably seen both Tony and Kitten as nothing more than any other berzerker enemy or wild animal on a rampage; kill it before it kills you in some horrid and nightmarish manner. Tony tried to summon up some sort of rage, or at least some mild irritation at her actions, yet he could not bring himself to do it. The two captives turned lab rats had every right to dish out vengeance at will, especially Kitten, even though it didn't make it right. Instead of feeling any anger or remorse, Tony felt only an emptiness, a shallow hole where he knew his lofty morals had once resided after Afghanistan.

She reached down, grabbed another AK and turned to Tony with her blood splattered face. "_Now_, we can go."

"You didn't have to do that," Tony whispered tersely, not taking his eyes from the grizzly massacre behind her.

"Yes. I did." Kitten held up the gun in her pale, scrawny hands. "I don't think it's fully registered in that great big fucking brain of yours, Tony, but if we don't make for damned sure to get out of here and fucking now, we're going to die one way or another." She trembled, seething at Tony's hesitation, hissing bitterly, "And, if that's the case and we are going to die, I intend to go out with my boots on."

Tony took the firearm from her and checked the clip with the practice of a man who knew weapons well, inside and out, no matter how much he hadn't ever wanted to touch something as lethal as that again. There was a certain level of resignation to his motions, borne only in his dark and brooding eyes. He held the weapon gingerly, knowing that, when the time came, no matter how much he wanted this to be as bloodless as possible, Tony was just as capable of murder as Kitten, just as desperate and just as backed into a corner as she.

"C'mon. Lets get the hell out of here."

They ran, but they didn't get very far. A humming met Tony's ears, right as the lights snapped off around them, and he swore, already feeling something coming for them, like a dawning overture in the back of his mind proclaiming 'something wicked this way comes.' It was a presence, a vibration and an electric charge in the air about him, one that Kitten didn't seem to notice until he came to a slow stop, freezing in place as the humming turned into a coy and mocking tune.

"Shit..."

A serene and devilish, yet familiar female voice greeted him in the darkness. "Oh, Tony Stark... how I've missed playing with you."

xxxx

Pepper, Fury, and their little band of hired Mitsuhama goons had been making fairly good time at sweeping the halls of the facility after their little, bloody run in with Ares-Stark security. They moved in neat, ordered teams, ducking left and right, checking corners and keeping careful eyes on one another, constantly searching. Tony was down there somewhere, and Pepper was going to find him.

After how simple of a matter it had been to dispatch the first time, the woman dared think this would be easy, a piece of cake, really. They were so very close now to getting Tony back, so close she could taste it, and nothing could stop her. Not now. Her heart lifted slightly at the thought while her mind remained in an almost edgy, paranoid alertness. She had to be sharp, focused at the task at hand, especially when the lights snapped out around them, plunging the fast response team into a deep, engulfing darkness.

Yet, they were prepared with their night vision goggles. Even as Pepper slipped hers back down over her eyes, she noted that the Mitsuhama men and Fury did the very same. Fury and the fast response team had their guns up and training about them as they looked down the hall through green tinted lenses. The long corridor spread lonely and empty before them and behind, without a trace of human presence, yet the warriors seemed ready and loaded for bear, as though a horde of guards would come popping out of nowhere at any minute.

What _did_ come popping out of nowhere, or, rather, waltzing out of sheer nothingness, would haunt Pepper Potts for some time to come.

At first, there had been nothing in the hall save the band of mercenaries in the hall, and Fury signaled for them to move forward. However, as something seemed to shift and as the air tensed before them at the junction at the very end of the corridor, Fury held up a fist, halting everyone in their tracks. Pepper drew in a deep breath and held it, even as the air just condensed into a vague shape before taking a final form. She gasped once more in surprise as the slight haze took the shape of a young girl dressed as Alice in Wonderland, but with a scarlet stained chef's knife held with tender care in one hand, red splashes of blood across her otherwise prim, white apron, and jet black hair. If Pepper didn't know any better, she might had thought it was Kitten with the dark locks. The girl skipped down the hall, almost playfully taunting them by coyly ignoring them for a moment.

Fury's voice came as a stern, deep rumble to Pepper's left. "Hold your position."

Not that she had any intention of disobeying him when the girl's head jerked to their direction and a sweet voice, sharp as a serpent's tooth called to them teasingly. "Ah, more friends come to play."

"Keep your distance," Fury ordered, although Pepper couldn't be entirely certain if he spoke to to the girl or to his team.

The girl slipped the knife over the edge of the wall now, turning almost insidiously slowly and sinuously upon her heels, with a sharp, predatory grace. She smiled, wide and toothy, perhaps too toothy, looking less and less like the innocent little Alice she seemed so desperate to emulate and more and more like a homicidal maniac. Her head hung, giving her eyes a narrow, dark, and feral look. The knife snipped over the wall with a low rasping sound.

Fury glanced to Pepper at his side. "Stay close."

"What is it?" Pepper breathed in a hush.

Fury shook his head quickly. "I don't know."

The girl gave a haughty, barking laugh before settling her eyes upon Nick. "Let's play, then."

xxxx

"What is it?" Kitten hissed.

Tony blinked before looking in the direction of the voice. The humming droned in his ears, sickeningly saccharine and teasing, singing a sweetly horrible dirge. It drew louder and close to him, as though singing only him in his ears. And Kitten didn't know... she couldn't hear it. Only he could.

He shook his head slowly. "Kitten... run."

"What is it?" she questioned in a hushed whisper.

"Just run."

He grabbed her by the wrist, and the unusual pair bolted down the long, dark hall. A horrid giggled rattled in Tony's ear like a witch cackle, sending the inventor hurtling faster through the darkness with an unsteady wobble, hauling Kitten behind him. His heart pounded in his chest as a vague light seemed to condense just behind him, just off of Kitten's shoulder, a strange haze. It was following them.

"FASTER!" Tony bellowed, his shout booming in the empty hall.

"Tony, wait!" Kitten shrieked, jerking back on his hand as she planted her heels into the ground, digging her bare feet in but finding no purchase against the inventor's hold. "Stop!"

Yet, it was too late. Even if it weren't too late, Tony wouldn't have stopped. He had turned just in time to see the pale light behind Kitten's shoulder had come together in a string of glorious, radiant codes, stringing together into a clear, precise wireframe in a human form. Tony's heart leapt into his throat were it rather firmly lodged its self for a moment with a hot flush of adrenaline. He slammed hard into something firm and unyielding with a god awful crack. His shoulder flared instantly with white hot pain searing through his shoulder, upper chest and neck. However, with all the adrenaline coursing through his veins like liquid fire, Tony instantly batted at the offending object, his fingers scrawling across it and finding it to be a smooth wall. His shoulder throbbed in protest while his left arm dangling limply.

"Tried to warn you. T-junction," Kitten growled, pulled on Tony's arm to haul him up, sending blaring agony through his shoulder and making him draw a quick hiss. "Happy now?"

"Not really," Tony grunted, testing what he now suspected to be a fractured clavicle from colliding with the wall at break neck speed. He glanced up as the wireframe drew flesh and rendered texture of that damned lolita. "Jonas..."

"Shit," the girl breathed.

She grabbed him by the other hand to pull him up from the ground, but, as she did, a stabbing pain bore into the back of Tony's skull as the lolita crooned sweetly in his ear, brandishing her stained butcher blade at him. Tony's vision swam as her knife twisted in his brain. He crumpled back to his knees as white sparks danced across his vision with lightning flashes. Code swirled about him, dizzily spinning in a wild vortex. Tony's breath hitched in his chest, but, surprisingly, Kitten was there, her hand gentle upon his neck.

"Tony..." She slapped him, harshly, right across the cheek, dragging his focus back to her. "We need to go."

He nodded limply, letting the girl drag him to his feet as the program laughed haughtily at them. "There's no where to run to. Nowhere to hide. You know this Tony Stark." Even as Kitten got Tony back to his feet and the two of them starting off again, the lolita sang on to him. "Nowhere to turn to."

Kitten pulled him along the hall, even as he struggled to shake off the stabbing pain in his mind. They ran along, the program, Jonas's program, just skipping along and frolicking on their heels. Somehow, damn her, Kitten knew the way through the place by memory even in the dark. She made soft mutterings as they moved, and, when Tony strained to listen to her, he could have laughed out loud. She counted the steps out loud. They had dragged her so often up and down these halls on borderline consciousness that Kitten had memorized the map of the place by steps and sound alone.

They put some distance between the t-junction, but not the lolita, for however slowly she seemed to saunter and stalk after them. Tony knew they would never put a safe distance between the program and them so long as they were in that facility. Jonas's control sunk into every inch of the facility's network. They needed to get out of there, and fast. Only then could Tony get his head away from the damned thing.

Kitten stopped suddenly with a start, her hands flailing into space around her. Tony slumped against her slightly as she moved, letting the girl drift into the void ahead of them. He felt her stop beside him, her fingers obviously having found purchase on something. Tony couldn't see what it was, but he could see the node to the side of them, glittering and waiting, calling to him. He shifted forward, his fingertips finding cool metal in the darkness.

"Your turn now." The girl huffed as a sound from behind caught her attention. "Better make it fast."

Tony nodded. "Two minutes. Give me two minutes."

xxxx

"Ignore it," Fury snarled as he checked around another corner. "It's just playing with us."

Pepper gave a grim nod as the fast response team gestured for her to move up along with them. The ghastly little Alice following along with them, lilting and dancing this way and that. They had much more of the facility to search to find Tony. They were getting close now to the spot where Mitsuhama had insisted that his initial team had found Kitten deep in the sublevels, the only place in the entire building that could likely hold both Kitten and Tony for any substantial amount of time granted their unusual talents.

Pepper felt herself smiling as they turned the last corner and found themselves face to face with a massive, hulking steel door as the MCT team set a load of charges. "Almost there... Just a little while longer, Tony."

**XXXX**

**Author's Notes: **Yeah, it's been a little while. And I left you on yet another cliffy. My bad. Yet, I've been a bit caught up with exams and all sorts of craziness, along with some random plot bunnies that just would not leave me alone (Check out **Paradox**__if you're into _Stargate Atlantis_ for a random one-shot tag to _The Last Man _and you'll see why I was a little caught up in things). I _had _wanted this to end on an entirely different note with this chapter, but it was getting kind of long. And I really can't wait to see your reactions for what happens next! squeals in delight


	32. Network Ping

**DUMPSHOCK - NETWORK PING**

"Tony... hurry..."

The inventor reached into the node, feeling the warm hum of electricity and binary coding humming in the back of his mind, drowning out the sensation of piercing shards of metal slipping through his veins. He licked his lips, feeling them salty and dry for what felt like no reason as his mind wrapped about the node. He reached out and tugged at the coding, spinning about himself like many silken cords. It felt so easy and so utterly natural, as swimming fluidly through an infinite sea of electrons. All he had to do was keep focused.

The coding slipped slightly through his fingertips as the lolita leaned over his shoulder, placing a hand that should have been intangible on his shoulder with a tingling sensation. "Tut, tut, tut. I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Shut up," Tony snapped back, rubbing his forehead and returning his attention to the code.

"You don't know what's on the other side," the lolita chirped seductively in his ears.

Tony blinked. She was right. There was no telling what was on the other side of that door. Not unless... Tony swallowed hard, letting loose his hold of the electronic door lock and moving on. His mind crawled along the network wiring, following the flow of information through cables and cords, jumping between nodes and routers this way and that. He felt himself spread and thin as his mind searched for the appropriate electronic information and access to it.

There.

The inventor froze as his vision overlaid through a security camera on the other side of the bunker door. An assault team stood at the ready, just a few feet away. They had pistols and guns, all sorts of firearms. Tony shivered to himself at the sight of it, but had little time to really react as thundering, booted footsteps rounded the corridor behind them in the darkness. Tony glanced over his shoulder at the sudden clamor in the otherwise silent and still hall, watching the bobbing lights of nightvision goggles approaching them.

"GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR, STARK!" Kitten shouted.

"DON'T MOVE!" The leader of the approaching assault force bellowed in the dark as the team slowly drew closer.

There came the horrible, dry clicks of guns being cocked as Tony swore. "Damn it. We're surrounded, Kitten."

"Nothing gets past you, now does it?" the intangible program sang only for Tony.

Kitten curled her lip in a feral snarl. "Just makes things more interesting."

A barb in Tony's chest twisted, sending a flesh wave of agony through him. "We're running out of time." When Kitten said not a word, he frowned. "What are you suggesting we do?" Tony barked as he refocused his attention on catching the node for the electronic lock. "Let them box us in?"

"PUT THE GUNS DOWN." The corporate soldier ordered. "LAY DOWN ON THE GROUND AND PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD."

The girl huffed. "Earth to Stark, we're already fucking cornered."

xxxx

The explosive went off with a deafening boom the reverberated against every hard wall of the corridor, rattling in Pepper's ears. Sadly, though, even Pepper had to acknowledge that she had gotten somewhat... _acclimated _to the sound and the concussive force of the blows. She hardly even flinched at the last one even as Nick Fury crumpled protectively over her, cupping his massive hands over her delicate ears in a surprisingly altruistic and almost chivalrous gesture.

For the briefest of moments, Pepper wondered just what exactly had turned her life so upside down so drastically. Just a few months ago, if that, Virginia Potts had been a prim, proper lady by all definitions of the word, refined to all extents and with a polished social grace. And, now, her she was, an entirely different woman. An Amazon. A warrior. A corporate spy and saboteur. An avenging angel and valkyrie for her missing employer. If someone had told her before this entire mess started that Pepper would be breaking into an Ares Industry facility armed to the teeth and with a fast response team from a rival weapons manufacturer at her call, Pepper might have laughed right in that individual's face. Yet, faced with the reality of it, she felt nothing like laughing.

There was a quick flash along with the explosion, and smoke to accompany the loud sound, but nothing beyond that. Pepper furrowed her brow and squinted through her nightvision goggles to attempt to see. The downside of night vision or any low light enhancement goggles was that smoke suddenly became too think, too opaque and almost solid. It took a moment for the haze to clear enough for her to see the aftermath of the blast, only to see the bunker door remained stubbornly in place, marred only with black scars from the blast.

Pepper did something she rarely did; she swore. "Shit."

xxxx

Obadiah Stane smiled viciously to himself, watching the video feed of the hall where Kitten and Tony Stark were cornered in the corridor as Stark seemed desperate to use his unusual gifts to unlock the door as Kitten paced nervously and Jonas continued to toy with his mind. The guards were almost upon them, judging by the movement on motion trackers and from the video feeds. He licked his lips with sweet anticipation of the grand finale to this whole little pathetic escape attempt while glancing at the other monitor displaying the intruders. Tony Stark had always, and would always remain to be severely outclassed and outmatched against Obadiah Stane, no matter what glancing, insignificant wins he had scored in the past against his old mentor.

He turned to the technomancer at his side. "End it."

Jonas grinned demonically from ear to ear, stroking his chin and stretching out with his mind to the nodes all around them. "With pleasure, sir."

xxxx

Tony couldn't see Kitten in the darkness, but he heard her motions. He heard her shift her weight to throw something. There was a skitter of paper rasping across the floor in Tony's direction. His hand instinctively shot out to catch whatever it was that Kitten had sent in his general direction and found thick paper with rounded edges. The medical files.

"Kitten?" he breathed, picking up the papers as he drew the assault rifle closer, hugging it to his chest.

She dropped her voice to but the faintest of whispers, and it took Tony a moment to recognize that the words were in his mind and not in the world about them, like a faint, mental tickle. _"Tony... can you open the door?"_

_"Yes..."_

He thought he felt a sort of nod from her through the connection she had established, a grim resolve of sorts. _"If this doesn't work... I want you to get the hell out of here. Get that file and get out. Make sure people know what's happening here."_

"Kitten..." Tony wrapped his mind about the lock of the door as he brought the rifle up. _"We can do this."_

Suddenly, Tony was back in the cave, still suited up in his jangling prototype, unable to move with all that weight unsupported and without anything driving it. He had been utterly helpless then as Yinsen bolted on his suicidal dash to buy him time. And, there she was, Kitten, outstretching phoenix wings to do the same thing all over again.

_"Just... get out of here. I'll find my own way out."_

The air felt heavier before him in a strange sensation as Kitten murmured something in the darkness before him. Tony moved faster than he thought possible, reaching out, clawing into the void for her before his mind even caught up with his hands. He caught her by her thin, bony wrist before Kitten could argue and snatched her back, before the mage could throw up a barrier in the air between them. It was a daring move, and, only part way through the motion, did Tony have even a chance of contemplating what might happen to him if he didn't move fast enough. A thousand and one images of grizzly bisection of both himself and the girl flashed through Tony's mind, but luck was on his side. Tony moved just fast enough to haul Kitten back and behind the wall she had been intending on protecting him behind just as the security team opened fire. Bullets whipped through the air and slammed into the wall, but they thankfully did not penetrate. Her wall held as the slugs pinged off of it and shredded themselves upon the magical fabrication.

She slapped at him in the darkness but, judging by the suddenly tangible and tingly wall that Tony slumped against, maintained the spell even as she shrieked, "What are you doing?!"

"Saving your ass," Tony growled, holding her close, dragging her to him.

She shook her head against his chest. "You stupid, goddamned sonovabitch. Mother fucking idiot." Kitten drew a ragged breath, struggling to maintain the barrier as a hail of bullets rained down upon it; Tony could almost see her will bending and breaking before him as she shouted, "What were you thinking?! You could have killed us both!"

Tony grabbed her fiercely by the arms and gave her a rough shake, silencing the mage. "I am _not _leaving you behind."

There was a strange moment of silence after those words left Tony's mouth, before anything happened at all. It was a calm before the storm in every way. Tony had never said anything like that to any one else before, except for perhaps Yinsen, and he felt for damned sure that Kitten had never heard those words in her life. He wasn't certain where the impulse had come to say them after so long of hating Kitten, yet they had spilt out as easily as sand through a sieve. And they had somehow felt right, just as sure and as pure as when he had pleaded with Yinsen at the mouth of the cave.

He couldn't see her, but he could feel her glare in the darkness, even as he asserted once more, much more firmly, "I am _not _going anywhere without you."

"Then we're going to need some help," Kitten whispered strangely and distantly, almost dreamily, shambling to her feet with an odd, uncharacteristic lack of coordination to her motions, as though the gunfire upon the barrier sapped her of all strength and grace.

He felt her take his hand and bring him to his feet, drawn up by a lingering warmth to her tips and the pale glow of the tattoo on her back and the fire of her eyes. Liquid murmurs slipped from her tongue even as he hand slipped to his to hold it. Fire snapped and popped in her.

"Do you remember when I told you I was waiting for the calvary to show up?" she inquired once more, in a regal tongue that did not seem her own.

Tony gave a quick nod. "Yeah..."

Kitten pressed her hands to her chest for a split second. "I wasn't being sarcastic."

xxxx

"I told you to take care of this mess," Obadiah snarled.

Jonas gave a fickle wave of his hand. "Let me have a bit of fun first."

Obadiah shook his head at the technomancer and the images on the screens. "Do what you want, but I want this matter resolved shortly."

xxxx

In a stroke of what may have been luck, divine hand, or possibly someone or something lurking behind the scenes, the door unlocked. Pepper gasped as the hefty bolt slipped from the wall mounts with a loud thunking sound. She blinked at the green lights to the side of her, to the door. The heavy steel thing

The little girl in her prim dress smoothed her apron. "Well... go on. Have a look-see."

Pepper glanced to Fury at her side for any indication of what to do. He had a set look to his face under the night vision goggles. And, despite the fact that she couldn't see his eyes, she knew Fury studying the empty hall before them intently, searching for any sign of a trap. The agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. gave a grim nod even as the MCT fast response team began to move out ahead of them.

Pepper followed cautiously, slinking at the heels as Fury and the corporate soldiers slipped down the corridor in silence. They were very close now. Just two turns through the halls, and they would be right on top the hell Mitsuhama's dogs had first found Kitten. She fought to maintain pace and not just bolt past the mercenaries, to rush to Tony's side and free him.

It was only when they came to the first of the cells that Pepper drew in a sharp breath and the cold, stinging reality sank in of what may have happened to Tony during those long months when she had been plotting and calculating, searching. The cells were small, cramped seeming, each with their own little toilet in the corner, obviously meant for housing the victims for extended periods of time, complete with think, clear polymer walls and hefty locks. She shuddered, thinking of how Tony must have felt, in the dark and alone, not knowing what might be coming down the hall.

"I'm coming, Tony," Pepper whispered to herself.

Yet, when they reached the end of the hall and found not a single person in any of the cells, Fury cursed audibly. "He's not here."

The woman felt her heart sink for but a moment before a deep, seething anger settled in, building up and welling over. Her body trembled with pure, dark rage. She had been so close, so very close. And, now, as the mercenaries about her and Fury slowly turned to face them, drawing up their arms, Pepper squeezed her left fist as she felt the Walther's reassuring heft in her other hand.

She tapped on her earbud radio. "Mitsuhama!"

Fury dropped close at her side, putting an arm in front of her to heard Pepper behind him, ordering sternly, "Stay back!"

"Mitsuhama!" Pepper snarled once more.

The sophisticated and mildly accented voice crooned back in her ear. "Yes, my dear Potts-san?"

"He was _never _here, was he?"

xxxx

If Tony hadn't been there himself, he might not have believed what happened next. The phoenix. Feng. It hadn't been there a moment ago. They had been alone, cornered, trapped in the all encompassing darkness that swallowed them whole. And, then, there had been a spark, but the faintest of glimmers of fire in her heart and radiating out from Kitten. She threw her arms out, like an eagle about to take flight, even as the light snapped from out of her body, right out of her heart and chest with a blinding flare. Little sparks danced across her arms and peppered the floor as the phoenix shot from her, but Kitten didn't seem bothered by it. Instead, both she and Tony watched with wide eyes as the light took shape and form, spreading its own wings to take to screaming flight as the sharp tang of burnt tinder hit his nostrils.

Kitten stumbled to her knees, blood fell from between her lips with a dark ooze in the place now lit only by phoenix down, dipping her heavy head to the ground while her arms hugged herself about the chest as though against a crushing pain. "Feng..."

The phoenix curled about her, resting its head on hers and wrapping her in flaming feathers that should have burnt but did not seem to touch her at all. "Your task?"

Kitten squeezed her eyes tight, obviously focusing hard to keep conscious and to clearly formulate a task, but the last conscious words of hers that spilt out were but a faint whisper, even as the wall began to crumble as her will bent and mind slipped. "Protect... us."

"At all costs."

Kitten crumpled to the floor in an exhausted heap before Tony could catch her, even as her mental barrier collapsed and a rain of hot metal came shooting across the hall at them. Not a bullet touched them. Tony had never seen anything living move as fast as the phoenix did, but he didn't care. He saw the fiery blur streak past him and spread flaming wings to protect them, shrieking out with a piercing wail, but that was all Tony saw save Kitten. By the time he managed to scramble to her and wrap his arms about her, Tony knew the mage had nothing left to give in this fight. Her eyes stood at half mast, glazed and confused seeming, barely able to focus in on anything. Crimson droplets, like little scarlet beads, rolled down from her eyes, nose, mouth, ears and the surgical ports in the side of her head. Fever radiated off of her, but she trembled as though frozen.

Kitten forced her eyes to roll up to meet his. "You... should be running."

Tony scooped her up in his arms, surprised both at how light she felt, how thin and fragile, as well as how much effort it had taken to lift her. They had been there far too long, waited far too long to start working together to get out of there. A twist wrenched in his chest, but Tony couldn't tell it was just the sad realization of how bad off they really were or if it were another of the lethal metal shards inching closer to his heart, closer to killing him from the inside out.

There were screams behind him, but Tony didn't care. These men had earned their death. And there would be more. Tony picked up the files, the evidence that Kitten had been so desperate a moment ago for him to get out of there, stuffing it into her weak hands.

"Hold this for me." Tony glanced over his shoulder to the phoenix before returning his attention to girl in his arms. "Kitten..." The girl lolled in his hold, her head resting against his almost peacefully as the blood continued to pour from her. "Kitten, I need your help. Call the phoenix."

"Feng..." Kitten breathed meekly.

He turned to the steel bunker door and let loose upon the node, ripping it open. His mind ripped and clawed at the information, tearing it apart and bending it to his will. Tony felt alive for the first time in ages as his mind surged through the network and impressed his desire upon it. The door swung wide open before them, and, before the other assault team could strike out, the phoenix streaked past them to dispatch the guards. Tony didn't blink, didn't turn his gaze away. He watched with a casual disinterest as tongues of fire cut through the men before the could react, as scarlet splattered the floor and as flesh burnt with an acrid scent. The phoenix barely surveyed its work as it charged on, the message clear as could be.

_"Follow me," _the phoenix said without human words.

Tony did, ripping apart node after node as he moved, a phoenix in his own right, bearing the fallen angel of Kitten. He watched as the servers crashed about them, as the phoenix escort drew them from the dark and to an elevator. He did not press a single button. Instead, Tony merely thought it, forced it upon the controls that he wanted out. Out of there, into the world, and free.

The elevator rocketed from their hell to the surface.

xxxx

"JONAS!"

The technomancer winced at Obadiah's bellow and frowned, pursing his lips together in a tight expression as he watched with a mild irritation as Tony Stark managed to evade his Alice at every turn, as though he'd completely and easily tuned the program out. There was no way it should be possible. Jonas was the stronger technomancer. He had more skills and better training, as well as more experience. Tony Stark was just a fledgling imposture playing pretend while the big boys worked.

"Jonas, you take care of this mess," Obadiah snarled right in his ears. "Right now, do you hear me? I don't care what it takes."

Jonas smirked, flexing his fingers. "Of course."

xxxx

The elevator slammed to an emergency stop, as the lights went out and red, emergency lighting kicked in. Tony started, but he knew he should have been expecting it. The phoenix raced onwards and upwards from them, somehow passing through the roof of the elevator without charring it and screaming through the deep shaft overhead.

"Jonas..." Tony breathed.

He licked his lips, understanding. Jonas was a technomancer like he. Tony let his mind slip into the elevator controls as easily as they had a few moments ago, finding the right codes and restarting it, even as he felt Jonas's presence moving towards him. Jonas moved like a wolf, stalking and circling, setting up sentries and programs at a rate Tony could not imagine as being anywhere near human. The programs were staring at him, drawing slowly closer.

There was only one thing Tony could do.

Slowly, carefully, Tony slipped past Jonas's entries as the skulking wolf and his Alice came close. His mind snared the server, following the flow of information back to its source. He snatched about the node, gripping at it and twisting it about himself. It felt warm and dreamy, humming about him with an electric tingle that soothed even the pressure about his heart where the metal slid closer and closer. It called to him to be with it, almost lovingly and maternal in a strange way that defied all logic and explanation.

"No..." Jonas spoke through the intercom despite whatever distance may have been between them. "What are you doing?"

Tony didn't answer the technomancer, giving only momentary pause to apologize to the server its self in his own way with a small nod. He just tore at the server with everything he had. There were so many different codes and so many different applications. Tony scattered it to the wind, feeling the warmth slip from him as, one by one, the nodes began to whither and die around him. The server grew cold and still as Jonas's dying wails faded to nothingness. Tony had never felt so utterly alone in his entire life.

Tony glanced to Kitten as his feet, tapping her cheek until she stirred. "C'mon..."

The phoenix waited for them there, beating its wings in languid, hypnotic motions. It stared out at Tony with piercing eyes that did not seem like eyes, but like burning embers that should not have seemed possible for sight. Tony ignored it, pulling Kitten closer to him.

"What do we do now?" he asked it as Kitten slumped heavily against him and as he leaned in to her.

The girl lifted her gaze to the phoenix. "Please... Feng... please... get us out of here..."

The phoenix dipped its head, and they were enfolded in white, radiant, warm light.

xxxx

Obadiah Stane and Nicholas Aurelius watched in shared horror as servers crashed about him, plunging them into a network blackout, and as Jonas let out an earsplitting shriek before tumbling to the ground. His body twitched and flailed in seizure, but Stane just stepped over him. There was nothing anyone could do for Jonas at the moment anyway after being cut off so abruptly from the servers about them.

Obadiah gave a curt shake of his head, pulling his cellphone out. "If you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself."

xxxx

Tony Stark stumbled out of the massive skyscraper and into the blinding light of day as the phoenix faded about them with a parting call. He struggled to recall how they had gotten there, to a lobby level of a grand building, lined with gleaming, polished marble in dark patterns. There was a receptionist at the desk, but she quickly excused herself and slipped somewhere out of slight before Tony could commit her face to memory. He shrugged it off, slung Kitten's arm over his shoulder and forced his feet, one in front of the other, and across the cool stone floor. The pushed open the chilled, tempered glass doors and stepped out into the world.

The frosty air peppered his skin instantly with a sharp, icy blast, but it tasted sweeter than any fine wine or sweet dessert. It carried along with chunky flakes, a sense of freedom that he hadn't felt in so very long. His body shivered from the frigid air, but Tony didn't care, his heart racing no matter the pain it caused by accelerating the metal shards along.

"We're free... we're free..." He gave the dazed, barely conscious Kitten a shake as he pushed on, half carrying and half dragging her through the cold air and down the street, away from the building where they had been held captive for so very long. "Kitten... we're free."

"Fabu... fuck... ing... lous," Kitten winced before raising her red, blood stained eyes. "Where...?"

Tony nodded to the skyline even as he trudged along, as his feet grew heavier and sluggish in the wintery air. They skyscrapers all about them that pierced the sky looked so utterly alike, so very similar. It was like a carbon copy of any other city in the world. Tony scanned what little of the city he could see as they continued to move, threading through the bustling walkers that seemed quite content to ignore the bedraggled pair. He turned and looked this what and that for some sort of way marker in the snowy sky before fixing his gaze upon a tall, unusual building, a sort of spire topped by a round disk and piercing needle. The Space Needle.

Tony swallowed and staggered when another barb slipped in his chest and his vision grayed. "Seattle. We're in Seattle."

**XXXX**

**Author's Notes:** See, what I mean by there was a little twist I wanted to see your reaction to? Well, if you know Shadowrun, you _know _Seattle had to come up at some point. All you runners out there should have seen this coming!

By the by, I just noticed the thing on my Reader Traffic that show the countries you guys hail from! Hello all you guys out there in Canada, Austrailia, the UK, Croatia, Finland, Netherlands, Ireland, Venezuala, Puerto Rico, India, Turkey, Germany, Romania, Italy, Israel, Sweden, and Phillippines! I had no idea people in so many countries were reading! I'm so flattered!


	33. Dial Up

**DUMPSHOCK - DIAL UP**

"He was _never_ here, was he?"

Pepper Potts hissed the words through her teeth over the radio, only to be met by a jaunty chortle on the other end of the line from Mitsuhama. It was the somewhat curt yet reserved sort of jovial sound that only a true nobleman could muster and still sound believable. Pepper could almost picture him lightly covering his mouth, as well. Her eyes narrowed to slits at the thought as the fast response team slowly turned on them, leveling their guns upon both Pepper and Fury.

Fury moved swiftly and surely, placing a gentle, guiding hand upon the woman and shoving her behind him. She had proven herself well over the months and in the heat of the moment here in Atlanta, but, up against an MCT FRT, the woman stood little chance of being any service to them. He, however, held his ground with a stern set to his jaw and and dark glower to his eyes.

"Why?" Pepper demanded in a low, venomous tone.

"Why, Potts-san, I would have thought it would have been quite evident by now. It's quite simple really, for someone of your caliber," Mitsuhama crooned slowly, carefully, as though tasting each word and measuring it carefully against the last as something rumbled beneath his tone. "You've been outbid. I've been paid quite handsomely to hand your lovely little head over to my rather eager business associates." Mitsuhama paused for a moment before ordering in a dark, bitter tone to his men, "Finish it."

Pepper hardly had the chance to draw breath before the world exploded around her once more.

xxxx

Tony Stark had never been to Seattle in all his life, sad as it was. In another life, with the increasing fervor surrounding the weapons technologies presented by Aries, Stark would have likely been keen to keep close to his competition, to study their work and, if he found any decent idea among the piles of moronic ones, draw it close and perfect it for his own lines. He might have even held small business dealings with Aurelius to get closer to the end product and study it a bit closer. However, in the wake of his captivity in Afghanistan, Tony Stark had little care for what other iron mongers produced, perfectly content to avoid his once business rivals so long as their products remained woefully ineffective against his armor. Tony suddenly wished beyond belief he had been to Seattle at least once before.

Tony's heart hammered in his chest, and not simply from the tiny barbs of metal slipping through his bloodstream and the searing agony that accompanied each subtle movement. No. This world felt strange and alien to him, loud and jarring. Car horns blared in the streets while trucks thundered past, each suddenly beastly seeming vehicle sending his heart racing and his mind reeling. The motion felt too much, turning his stomach sour with every step. The streets were filled with strangers, a hundred thousand anonymous faces jostling together, occasionally bumping into Tony, who would flinch away in horror, his heart jumping to his throat.

Tony glanced back and forth, scouring the streets. Kitten and he were in a bad way. Their orange scrubs were so thin they could practically be considered threadbare, virtually useless in the crushing, winter cold of the snow. She hung limply at his side, barely able to hold her head up, gritting her teeth together and focusing on the struggle to put one foot in front of the other. She had over extended herself and desperately needed to sleep, to rest and recover. And he? Another shard of metal slipped in his flesh, digging and twisting in his chest as if to emphasize the point. Tony's muscles clenched about his heart, cramping inward, drawing his hand up to his chest to press reflexively on his sternum.

He was a walking heart attack.

"Tony!" Obadiah's voice cracked like a whip in the cold, cutting air.

Tony tightened his grip on Kitten and soldiered forth, emboldened by Obadiah's shout. Each step was agony, but Tony was no quitter by nature. After everything they had given, after everything they had been through, Tony wasn't about to give up. He would keep going, even if it meant walking himself to death on the streets of Seattle.

"TONY!"

She started in his grip at the sound, nearly tumbling away from him. She felt fever flushed and hot, almost steaming and burning through the scant, thin orange fabric. Kitten burnt, her flesh singing a thousand agonies and promising a thousand more, as her sweat slicked arm slipped through his grip. The phoenix tattoo flared and snapped beneath the fabric, the light shining through with an eerie, supernatural glow. She stood, on her own two feet, for the briefest of moments, crimson oozing from her nose and eyes in thick rivulets.

"Tony..." Kitten breathed at his side, her eyes going distant and glazed as they stared vacantly at the city spread before them.

"TONY!"

Footsteps echoed on the pavement in Tony's ears, somehow distinguished from the rest of the sounds about them. They came with a cadence that Tony knew all too well from his formative years spent hanging around the labs and factory. He recognized those steps as belonging to none other than Obadiah in his handcrafted Bruno Maglis. Obadiah always had impeccable taste in his footwear, favoring slick, luxurious leather shoes, preferably of an Italian vintage, giving his steps a sort of muffled clip to them on most surfaces.

"TONY, YOU GET BACK HERE!" Obadiah bellowed, closing the distance between them. When he drew close, he stopped, and Tony could practically hear the smirk as Obadiah pointed out, "You can't survive out there for long, Tony, and you know it." Tony froze and shuddered, feeling Obadiah's sneer upon his back. "You can feel it already, can't you, Tony?"

Tony said nothing. What could he say? He felt each slip of the metal lodged firmly in his chest, knew they were moving ever so insidiously towards his vital organs. However, Tony could never and would never concede to Obadiah Stane. He closed his eyes and winced as another shard caught somewhere in him and tore.

Ages ago, his personal physician confided concerns that leaving the metal in his body so close to his heart and held only by a magnetic suspension plate was taking a ridiculous chance, medically speaking, likely shortening his life expectancy by decades unless Tony retired to a quiet life. Tony had balked and refused, arguing that he could do so much more as Ironman in a shorter life than he ever could in a long, "healthy" life spent lounging about the pool or parked in front of his television catching up on soaps and Hollywood gossip. A group of doctors and surgeons had proposed to Tony that they could attempt to remove the barbs. However, the surgeries required presented several risks, including the fact that the gaping hole in his chest from the socket would likely never close after so long held open. Tony had scoffed at the suggestion granted the risks presented and declined the surgeries. Now, in retrospect, he wished he had just taken the chance.

"Tony, Tony, Tony," Obadiah whispered, his breath dropping to a softness and tenderness that meant he _needed _something, the same sort of friendly chiding Obadiah had used to coerce Tony into showing off the arc reactor. "I underestimated your abilities, Tony."

_'He is buttering you up to eat you alive.' _Phoenix feathers tickled at his brain, but the voice sounded alien and strange, neither Kitten nor Feng, but a curious mixture of the two, crooning deep in the back of his consciousness.

"I know...." Tony whispered to himself.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder and squeezing. His body felt tiny and brittle beneath Obadiah's pampered, fat palm, as though Stane could crush him with just a tiny flex of his muscles. It was the product of.... how long has it been? Weeks, maybe months of torture and near starvation. However, those fingers did not grip, did not slam down through bone. Instead, they just lingered there in a macabre parody of friendship and comfort.

"Come on back, now, Tony, and we'll get that magnet up and running in no time."

Tony bristled, stiffening under the chilling touch. "No."

"I didn't think so."

Something, cold, round and metallic pressed against his spine. The muzzle of a gun. Obadiah took no chances. He dug the pistol into Tony's back, drawing closer, near enough that Tony could smell his after shave and cologne.

"Come on, Tony. You can make this easy on yourself."

Soft downiness enfolded him, wrapping about him warmly and tenderly. The scent of tinder and incense curled about his nostrils. The sound of her wings filled his ears. He heard her breath in, along with the sickening click of the gun cocking. He felt her exhale about him, felt the heat of her fire spreading about them.

"Feng..."

The phoenix cried out in his ears, a shrill war cry piercing the Seattle city scape. The scream echoed in his mind, reverberating in his chest and singing down his veins. The phoenix stretched out its wide wings about Tony and through him, catching the wind on the edge of its bright, radiant flight feathers. There came a click from the gun, a sudden bang, but it was eclipsed by a sudden lurch in his chest, the odd feeling of something curling about his heart and tugging forward, tugging on his heartstrings but no in the emotional sense, but in an entirely physical sense.

_'Close your eyes, Tony Stark.'_

He did, and the world fell away with a sudden snap and a flare of fiery heat.

xxxx

The noise as the ceiling came down before them was incredible, worse than even the deafening explosives the fast response team had laid and far worse than weapon fire in even these tight quarters. Even somewhat prepared and almost expecting it, the sudden hail of rubble and dust raining down from above took Pepper's breath away even as Fury swept over her to cover her protectively from much of the debris. She drew her hand up reflexively to her mouth and nose, covering them against the cloud of dust, clamping her eyes shut tight. Fury held her tight to him, so close she could feel the heat of his body and the soft puff of his oddly calm, collected respiration against the nape of her neck, slow and composed despite the chaos about them. When Fury released her enough to turn and look up, she felt her lips curl into a tiny smirk of victory to spy what fury had some crashing down from the upper levels.

An almost artificial voice resonated above the clamoring voices of the MCT squad shouting at one another, booming loudly, "Throw your weapons down and surrender now."

Pepper grinned madly from ear to ear at the sight of the Mark II Ironman suit standing there at the brunt of the chaos, knowing exactly who piloted the suit now. The suit stood stock still and stiffly there, staring down the MCT team as they regrouped. The mercenaries stared back, perhaps unsure what they were faced with, perhaps wondering exactly where the weak points were, or maybe who drove the suit if they were supposed to be rescuing Tony Stark.

Pepper didn't have time to wonder when the mercenaries regrouped and Ironman spoke again. "Fury, Pepper, now would be time for you to exit stage right."

Neither required any further invitation.

xxxx

The abrupt surge of the world about him made Tony gasp in shock and surprise, especially granted he had instead been expecting a bullet to come slamming through his back and into his lung. Instead, when he felt torn from that spot and pulled forward, as though a sharp schism erupted between his body and the reality that was the cold, Seattle streets. When he drew that sharp inhalation, his lungs filled with warm, sweetly spiced air, not the chilled, peppery winter air of the city, like something from scorching summer day in some far off exotic land, while the wind howled in his ears, rushing about him and roaring like a fire.

Despite what Feng, or Kitten, or whoever had cautioned about closing his eyes, Tony opened them, right as the whirlwind motion slammed to a screaming halt. He tumbled to the ground with Kitten at his side as the phoenix cried out in his ears. Radiant, white light blinded him momentarily, but, as he blinked it away, a cool gloom met Tony's eyes. His head swam from both the swift motion and the abrupt halt. It was a sickening, stomach churning sensation to be dumped into such a vastly different place so instantaneously, and his gut twisted uncomfortably. He swallowed convulsively, forcing the bile lapping at the back of his mouth down.

Tony blinked, clearing his vision and forcing himself to focus despite how acutely sluggish his mind felt in the wake of.... well... whatever it was the phoenix had done. He sprawled on a cool, hard and somewhat damp surface, scratchy, irritating and chilling even through the orange overalls, with Kitten beside him. Concrete. Tony sat up, clutching at his aching chest, and glanced about. They were underground in a wide, open space with orange lights spaced at regular intervals. There were cars parked in neat, even rows about them. A parking garage. A part of Tony thrilled that he was able to so succinctly surmise this fact.

"How....?" Tony whispered almost timidly.

"Feng," Kitten breathed in a wispy, thin voice, rolling onto her side and hugging herself against the cold, faint chuckles escaping her pale lips.

"Teleporting?" The inventor mused idly, shaking the disorientation off.

The phoenix chittered and clicked from off to one side, a strange, musical sound, while its mighty, inhuman and almost godly voice spoke in the back of Tony's mind. _'Surely even a mind as immature and human as yours must be aware of the vast improbabilities to instantaneous travel no matter the myths.' _The phoenix mocked him. _'No. We have merely traveled exceedingly swiftly, the speed of flame its self, presenting the _illusion _of instantaneous travel.'_

A part of Tony chuckled inwardly at the phoenix bird's insinuation that it somehow followed actual physical laws of behavior. The phoenix scampered along on narrow, lithe little legs like a sand piper, dancing across the cold concrete towards the wayward pair of refugees and leaving a wake of glowing embers behind it. The nimble and ancient creature stopped just before Tony and cocked its head to the side in an odd expression. Tony stared back at those beady, black eyes, incredibly thankful but unable to say a thing as the barbs twisted close to his heart. With each beat, the inventor felt those damned shards slipping closer and closer, and, yet, he could not do a thing but stare into those dark eyes and feel the phoenix's gaze piercing deep into him. The world condensed down to that simple instance, spanning infinitely before Tony.

The phoenix lowered its pointed beak down in what might have been a bow as Feng's voice thundered in Tony's ears along with the thumping beats of his own hair and the sound of distant wings. _'And, you, Anthony Stark, once granted your life anew, what would you do if you were to be granted that life once more?'_

Tony had no answer, and, yet, the phoenix stared on, even as Tony's body gave out beneath him. He slipped to the ground before the phoenix in a rather graceless heap, the muscles clamping down around his heart viciously. He grunted, clenching his teeth together to hold back the pathetic and downright shameful whimpers of pain that threatened to escape his lips. The biting send a tickle through his chest, and he coughed, spattering something warm and liquid on his lips and the concrete before him. Tony rolled onto his back and touched his lips gently, finding scarlet blood there. Tony wasn't certain whether to laugh or cry at the thought of dying there and now after everything they'd gone through to get free once more.

Feng peered down at him with those cold, unfeeling and downright inhuman eyes, asking, _'Was it worth it?'_

"Yes...." It was all Tony could manage as the warmth seeped from him, leeched away by the stone.

The phoenix dipped its head once more, a slow, easy gesture of perhaps respect or simply pity before vanishing in a puff of sparkling, red embers, leaving Kitten's pale, bloodied and frightened visage in its place. The girl's eyes were wide and white with terror, eyebrows scrunched together in..... was it concern? Tony frowned at the sentiment in his once enemy now, perhaps, partner. She leaned over him, brushing back a stray lock of her long, dark hair to sweep it behind her ear. A thick droplet of her blood dribbled from her chin down to him, pattering onto his orange coveralls.

Her hand fell upon his shoulder tender, trembling as she breathed, "Tony? Tony? What's wrong?"

He reached for his chest, his fingers fluttering over the empty socket penetrating deeply into his rib cage. "My heart..."

Kitten's eyes widened for a moment before narrowing in focus, growing as cold and distant as the phoenix that had stood over him just seconds before, as shrewdly pointed as the girl had regarded him upon their first abysmal meetings. Slowly, Kitten turned from him, moving awkwardly on limbs stiff from exertion and muscles weak and languid from wasting away for so long down in the dark. She staggered to her feet, swaying upon them drunkenly as she stood upright. For a moment, Kitten just stood there, lording solemnly over Tony before glancing about, finding the nearest stairwell and emergency exit, and ambling with choppy limps towards it.

Tony watched her as she stumbled away from him, his heart twisting with each tottering step Kitten took away from him. She was leaving him, abandoning him, and a part of him didn't blame her considering how pathetic and weak he was, how much of burden he would be until those damned barbs hit his heart and finally ended his sad, wasted little life. Tony wanted to look away, but he couldn't. Instead, he stared, hot tears prickling at his eyes to know that Kitten had no other choice. Kitten flopped limply in midair and fell, slumping against the nearest car. Tony's mind distantly recognized it as a newer models that was now so effectively stained with her own blood in dark smears that left Tony wondering which of the two of them would succumb first to their injuries or to the cold. She slipped, freezing at the window and staring into the car solemnly and stilly before sliding down the side slightly towards the ground.

"Kitten....."

They were dying out there, in the cold like that. They had survived Obadiah and Ares, but that could not change the simple fact that they had been beyond saving well before their paltry escape attempt. Tony could see that clearly now, and, upon spying it, could not turn away. He cracked his lips to call her back once more, but nothing back out. Kitten grit her teeth and forced herself back up, walking away slowly, and Tony could not say a word because, if anything, one of them had to live. One of them had to tell their story.

xxxx

The world had faded to a distinctly somber place, drained of color and vibrance when the doctors informed Rhodes that he would never walk again. Never run and feel the nearly intoxicating burn of lactic acid licking along his calves and up the long lines of toned muscles to his legs. Never climb, not the towering training walls, not even to a top bunk, muttering the Marine's Hymn like a protective, ancient charm, warm and sweet upon his tongue.

Worse had been the grim realization of what complete paralysis meant to him more specifically. Complete paralysis meant a military discharge for any man or woman, an honorable one for James Rhodes considering his rather decorated career. Sure enough, the discharge arrived in short order, long before Tony had vanished off the face of the Earth, brought by uniformed officer who spoke in somber yet reverent tones in regards to Rhodes's service before handing over the necessary paperwork, placing it on the bedside table.

That was fine. Rhodes had served for a long and.... unique career. It may not have been as glorious as other officer's, however, it had been a good term of service in his opinion. The end of his service was not the thing that had Rhodes's throat tightening up and an uncomfortable heaviness resting upon him. It had been the implication that he would never fly again, never hear the rush of the air compressing over the cabin and skimming over the wing with a welcoming roar. He would never chase those distant blue horizons, burst through the white clouds and reel through the skies as the wind itself. That had been almost too hard to bear. He'd nearly died right then and there in the hospital bed just thinking about it and feeling the walls closing in upon him.

However, Tony had given him that back and more with the suit he now wore as he stood there in front of the MCT fast response team. The suit conformed perfectly to his body, obviously re-tailored to his body size by Tony before it had been bequeathed to him granted that even the helmet hadn't fit at all that first time he'd tried it on. Pepper had helped him into it, and, although Rhodes could not feel it, the suit fit snugly and securely without binding and strangling. Perfection, as could be expected from the great Tony Stark.

"STAND DOWN!" One of the FRT members dared to shout out at the suited man.

Rhodes licked his lips and flicked his eyes up, letting his irises sweep and lock on each of the mercenaries in turn with thin, round cross hairs in bright, almost cheery red. "JARVIS, bring weapons online. Targeting hostiles."

Rhodes used his eyes the most, utilizing subtle quirks and shifts to command the suit about him, along with voice commands directly to JARVIS. It was an awkward system at first, yes, but after some trial and error along with a bit of practice, Rhodes found he could control the suit in air with a greater degree of finesse than any jet or large craft. It had been just as awkward to grow accustomed to the suit manipulating his body about him, but Rhodes could deal with that if it would let him take to the skies again. And the flight? God.... it was exhilarating to say the least, taking his breath away and making his heart leap into his throat each time he took off, each time just as thrilling as the very first time he flew.

When the Mitsuhama goons opened fire on Rhodes, he inhaled and flew like the wind after each of them in turn. He turned and reeled nimbly, with legs that no longer moved of their own power, dancing in the suit as both puppet and puppeteer. The mercenaries fired upon him, the bullets pinging off the suit and slamming into him with such force to actually shove the Mark II suit off its mark, but, without a functioning spinal chord, Rhodes felt no pain, not even the instance of impact, only the dizzying sensation of being spun and whipped about. They could shoot all they wanted, but they would never touch Rhodes. He kicked out and slammed into them, driving the suit after them with crushing force, shattering their semi-automatics like brittle spun glass between his fingers. The suit twisted and dodged between bullets, cutting through the air and the hallway, lashing out at each of the soldiers for hire until, one by one, they fell by his metal clad hands.

He exhaled and tasted victory, sweet and metallic on his tongue as the hall went still and silent once more, but it was a bitter sweetness. This was a pointless victory in the end, with no real gain. Tony was still lost, possibly dead at this point, and they were no closer to knowing where he could be. Rhodes turned on his heel to follow Pepper and Fury as they raced upwards, through the building. However, a small idea had already germinated in his head as the suit moved about him to catch up with the others.

"JARVIS, any chance you can patch into the network here?" Rhodes inquired swiftly.

The artificial intelligence instance in the suit replied swiftly. "There are several firewalls and protective protocols in place to prevent even internal penetration of network security-"

"I need a simple yes or no." Rhodes growled under his breath.

JARVIS paused as though with consternation. "I can try."

"Do it."

xxxx

Kitten ambled on weak, staggering legs to staircase, Tony's eyes on her the entire time. He held his breath as she paused at the heavy, metal door. Tony felt the universe pause along with him, waiting, hoping she might turn back for him, but Kitten forged on and through the door, leaving him. Only when she had left him, when the cold crypt of the parking garage lie still once more, did Tony lie back and allow himself to cry, first in small, escaping tears, followed by pathetic, sniveling and stifled little sobs before the metaphorical dams burst.

He curtailed himself only when he heard the sound of footsteps once more followed by a tremendous smash of shattered glass. He flinched, curling up protectively on himself and hugging the vacant socket in his chest. Tony blinked, clearing his vision and staring out into the shadow, to the near car. His heart leapt to spy Kitten standing there, rearing back and dragging a fire ax from the newly shattered driver's side window of the car with a loud grunt. He furrowed his brow as she let the ax handle slip from her hand to unlock the door, drag it open, and pop the hood.

"Kitten..." he croaked uncertainly.

She ignored him, moving slowly, weakly to haul herself up and to the hood of the car. Kitten unlatched the hood and raised it slowly, her arms shaking from the effort. She leaned into the engine cavity, momentarily hidden from Tony's sight before dragging something from the car, heaving the battery out. It slid from her grasp and slammed down onto the ground with a rather distinctive and heavy thunk that echoed loudly in the garage. Kitten dragged it behind her by the handle to Tony's side, each step issuing forth a nasty rasping sound that sent chills down the inventor's spine. When she reached him, her legs crumpled out from beneath her, and Kitten knelt by his side.

"I read _Vanity Fair._" The statement sounded flat and almost noncommittal from her tone, but Tony knew it was just from how worn and tired she was, spent from her magic. "Said you had a car battery keeping you alive." The girl gestured to the battery. "Well?"

Tony looked to the battery before swallowing and nodding. "Yeah..... That'll do."

xxxx

Pepper and Fury climbed out from the sewer network into a cool, damp parking lot not far from Perimeter Mall and the Ares facility. The lot was dark on that end, lit only by sickly white lamps that hummed in the silence of the night. Pepper stumbled just beyond that, beneath the towering, shadowed pines that lined the parking lot to flop out upon a thin bed of their long, browned needles. There was a moistness there, a softness to the loam beneath her, a sort of mellow scent accompanying it. Pepper drank in the sensation of the chilled stillness to it all after the chaos and their agonizing failure to find Tony.

Off to the side, Fury called for a pick-up on his radio, relaying their position to the waiting helicopter pilot before returning to the woman. He stood over her, his body rigid with some unspoken tension. Fury held a sort of pointed look to his gaze, as though ready to say something to her. Pepper rolled onto her side, putting her back to him. Fuck him. She did not need his sympathy nor any pathetic attempt at easing a heart so heavy that she could not even shed tears.

He drew a deep breath, but Pepper cut him off curtly, "If the next words out of your mouth aren't a new plan for finding Tony, you can just save your breath."

That rather effectively shut Fury up.

They waited in distant silence for a few moments together until something streaked in the heavens from the corporate complex. Pepper recognized the sight well and rose, straightening her shirt, dusting away the pine stray, and smoothing her coppery hair. Rhodey did not need to see her so disheveled in the face of defeat as he came down to land easily and almost gracefully.

Pepper opened her mouth to speak, but Rhodes interrupted. "Seattle. He's in Seattle."

"What?" Pepper breathed in shock.

"I'm going there. Now."

**XXXX**

**Author's Notes : **ZOMG hiatus! I've been so busy with other stories and had lost my voice with this one. But, I'm making a valiant effort now to round up the tail end of **Dumpshock**__and give you guys * some* sense of closure (*although, anyone who knows me knows I love stories with open endings and room to grow).

I've been developing a bit of a bad habit lately of offering to readers if they want to pick up a story of mine and continue on with it. So, anyone with any interest of going forth with the Shadowrun x Ironman world, be my guest. Just drop me a line before you post so I know where to look for it!


	34. Damage Control II

**DUMPSHOCK – DAMAGE CONTROL**

"I want him found, and I want him found NOW!" Obadiah Stane growled bitterly.

He had no comprehension of how his prized specimens had so easily vanished in a flare of blinding, brilliant light in the middle of a busy, downtown street, and Obadiah did not rightly care at the moment. This was bad, very bad, but not altogether unsalvageable. No law enforcement officials had come knocking yet, despite the occurrence out front. That meant Tony had either decided rather smartly not to draw attention to himself, or that he was unable to summon police help. Either way, that meant that there was still time, so long as they moved quickly enough to find Tony and Kitten before they caused any more trouble.

"Find him and bring him back. Monitor all police broadcasts, television, radio, internet, the works." Obadiah orders in sharp, curt barks. "And keep an eye on area hospitals, pharmacies, and any place that sells auto supplies. Between the thing in his chest and open surgical sites, they're going to need medical attention sooner or later. And, if not, he's going to need a new battery. We'll be waiting."

xxxx

Finding a battery was easy; finding the necessary cables along with something to strip and splice the ends took for longer and several more swings of the fire axe. By the time Tony finally started connecting the wires to the electromagnet, his hands trembled violently from the bitter cold. He called Kitten to this side and explained, through both broken sentences and gesture what to do, her tiny hands more that accommodating in size for the socket to work delicately at the base-plate while he lie limp and still for her to work. His breath came in staccato puffs through chattering, clenched teeth, while Kitten looked pale, her cheeks flushed with a sickly red as she twisted the last connection into place.

"Now what?" Kitten breathed in a hoarse rasp.

Tony shook his head against the frigid concrete. "Nothing. It's good." He cracked an eye open and chortled oddly. "I should be asking you that."

She curled her arms about herself, hugging herself against the cold as she cocked an eyebrow. "Hrm?"

"Now what do we do?" Tony pressed, curling onto himself as well from both exhaustion and the icy cold. "You've done this before."

Kitten smirked slightly, her lips kissed with a purple-blue shade. "How are you at car shopping?"

xxxx

Pepper and Fury waited in the shadow of the trees for but a few minutes before a gleaming, dark helicopter rounded over the mall and landed nimbly before them. Pepper glanced to Fury, who nodded. Friends. He took his by the hand and dragged her up from the soft bed of pine straw and into the wild maelstrom of the rushing air about the chopper as one of the passengers threw open the sliding side door and extended a hand to Pepper. She smiled as she recognized Coulson and took his hand while Fury scrambled in behind her. The chopper took off within a minute of landing, secure with the precious cargo of Agent Fury and Potts and raced into the night.

Pepper stared out the window as Atlanta dropped out from beneath them and the chopper rushed off, feeling her heart crack and quake. They had been so close, so very close, and yet thousands of miles away. No closer to getting Tony back. It was Afghanistan all over again; the waiting, the hoping, the getting excited over nothing. She bit her knuckle in frustration.

There came a commotion in the cockpit perhaps thirty minutes into flight. At first, it seemed like nothing, until Coulson tapped Fury on the shoulder and spoke into his ear despite the noise of the helicopter. Fury's lip quirked into a somewhat lopsided smirk, and he glanced to Pepper.

"What?" she shouted.

"Get me a vid tablet," Fury instructed his agent before turning to Pepper once more and bellowing over the racket, "You're going to want to see this."

xxxx

Rhodes had never honestly considered how long a flight-time it was from Atlanta to Seattle. He never had any need to fly there, let alone fly himself. However, he imagined that, between the suit's advanced propulsion system and Jarvis's impeccable guidance through wind shifts and bands of pressure shift, he would make impossibly good time across the country.

Not long into the flight, however, Jarvis chirped in his ear. "Colonel Rhodes, I have an incoming transmission from Ms. Pepper Potts."

"Put it through."

There was a pause before Pepper's voice piped into his ear. "RHODES!"

"Pepper! What's going on?" the colonel asked.

"You're NOT going to believe this!" She laughed, nearly hysterically. "He's out!"

"What?"

Pepper caught her breath and blurted it out once more. "He's free! He got out!"

Rhodes furrowed his brow. "Tony? Where is he?"

"Seattle International. Long term parking." He could almost hear the woman bite her lip. "Or, at least he was."

"What are you talking about, Pepper?"

It took a moment, but a grainy video feed appeared in the HUD. Rhodes put the suit on autopilot for a moment so he could focus on the display. It seemed to be an indoor parking space of some form, dark and dimly let. At first, it seemed empty and barren, devoid of any human life yet packed with cars. Then, two forms stumbled into view, shouldering one another's weight and carrying something bulky and weighty between them. Tony, and that little bitch, Kitten, hanging onto one another as though for dear life. Tony slipped from Kitten's grip and leaned heavily against a car. Rhodes watched in confusion as Kitten swung a large axe through the back seat window, reached through the hole, unlocked the front door and opened it for Tony. Tony practically fell into the car, working under the console and out of sight. In mere moments, the inventor had the car hotwired, and the two were speeding away with Kitten at the wheel.

Rhodes whooped in the helmet, and Pepper laughed. "I know! Can you believe it?"

"Any idea where they were heading?"

Fury spoke on the line next. "An APB has already been issued. We should have them in protective custody shortly." The agent paused. "However, there seems to have been an event in Seattle. Ares and Stark Industries security is on high alert judging from their com chatter."

"Shit. We've got to find Tony before they do," Rhodes muttered darkly. "Jarvis, let's step on it."

"My sentiments exactly, sir."

xxxx

They rode in silence for maybe fifteen or twenty miles as the downtown area of Seattle bled away from them into the lulled doldrums of suburban America. Tony tried, initially, to watch the sprawl of the city as it flowed about them, but it was too much too soon. The buildings, cars, and signs all blurred together into one, dizzying array of colors and shapes, too much for Tony's mind to comprehend after so long a span of nothing but plain, stark white of the cells and labs. His head swam amid the overwhelming sea of stimuli until the strain of attempting to keep up with it all brought on a blinding migraine, forcing Tony to retreat his vision to the comforting and refreshing stillness of the warnings and instructions printed on the sticker atop the car battery, despite the fact he knew more about batteries than could ever be contained on a tiny square of paper and plastic.

It seemed an unspoken agreement that, with the bulk of the car battery and the short leads that held it to his heart, Tony would not be driving anywhere anytime soon, and, after the world proved too much to Tony, he felt thankful for the simple excuse. Kitten drove as Tony clutched the car battery close to his chest and leaned into the refreshing warmth pumped out of the heater at full blast. However, after just a short time of relishing the heat, Tony's nerve broke, and he timidly suggested they ditch the car. It was only a matter of time before the vehicle was reported stolen or Kitten passed out at the wheel and ran into something. To his surprise, she agreed without comment.

Kitten coasted through the suburbs before pulling into the parking lot of a K-Mart. Tony wanted to ask, but he was too tired to worry about her. He trusted her, for whatever that was worth. She parked in a far corner beside a line of innocuous, beige, metal bins labeled for clothing donations.

"Now what?" Tony croaked, blinking his increasingly bleary eyes.

"New threads," Kitten heaved as she exited the car and started to stagger to the bins.

When she reached for the door handle, Tony climbed out of the car after her, tugging the battery along by its strap and calling as loudly as he dared, "Kitten, don't. This… this doesn't feel right. Stealing from the needy?"

"We've got no money, no place to go, and nothing warm to wear in this cold," Kitten argued swiftly in a breathless huff. "Does that qualify as needy enough for you?" She picked at her coveralls at a patch stained with her own blood and char, "Plus, orange and bloody is a little bit of an attention getter if you're trying to lay low."

The inventor chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment before nodding in concession. She had survived on the run for years while Tony lived the sheltered life in his Malibu mansion. He had to trust her, even if it meant performing acts of questionable morality.

"Besides," Kitten began as she drew the door to the bin. "These clothes don't actually go to the needy." She pointed at the labeling on the door, decrying any donations made to it benefited a local first aid. "See ?The good stuff gets sold at places like the Good Will, and the crappy stuff gets sold to get mixed into paper. Now give me a hand."

Tony could not argue with that logic. He stumbled over to her side and gave her a bit of a leg up, watching as she lumbered into the donation bin. She slipped over the lip of the opening, wriggling through the opening until gravity took hold of her, and the girl teetered forward, tumbling into the container. Tony flinched, his heart leaping into his chest, but Kitten did not fall far, only a foot or so before landing into a rather soft pile of plastic trash bags. She hoisted a few bags out of the big and onto the ground before shimmying out and flopping against Tony as her thinned frame slid from the bin. He helped her tow the bags to the car and climbed in before she peeled out of the lot.

Kitten drove for a few more miles before pulling onto a side street and letting the car idle while she dug through the bags. Much of the clothes were, as Tony expected of a donation bin, "well-loved" and worn to put it politely. The hems were softened and frayed, torn and mangled in some parts. Most of them were also, unfortunately, children's clothes, far too small for the two bedraggled and exhausted travelers. However, with enough searching, they turned up a decent enough set of options in a bag of nothing but sweat pants and hooded sweatshirts that seemed like someone's old, discarded gym clothes, complete with the musty odor of stale sweat. Tony did not care, so long as they were warm, especially when he found amid the discards, a zippered hooded sweatshirt that could be closed over the cables to the electromagnet, while the hood would conceal the surgical ports on both of their heads from prying eyes. They both pulled the clothes on over their orange coveralls, reluctant to shed the warmth of those.

When Tony finished dressing, he glanced to Kitten at his side. The mage had finished before him and sat slouched against the door. Her breath came in soft puffs, marked by a ring of fog upon the window by her mouth that pulsed with her respiration. Her eyelids hung at half-mast, and her eyes were glazed and somewhat clouded, unfocused. The girl had overextended herself in the escape, leaving herself with little to no reserves to tap into. She was beyond exhaustion, pressing somewhere into that strange territory of adrenaline-fueled drive that could vanish without notice. They were only maybe an hour or two into their escape, and that fight-or-flight response could melt away any moment now, leaving Tony equally high and dry.

Tony reached across and touched her arm gently. The runner stirred slightly and murmured, but she did not fully wake. He squeezed her upper arm slightly and gave a small shake, rousing her. Kitten forced herself up, blinking owlishly.

"Hmm?"

The inventor pursed his lips, mulling it over for but a millisecond before he said anything. "I've got an idea."

"What?" she breathed softly.

"Just drive."

In the end, it had been a fairly simple decision. Tony instructed Kitten to drive about for a few moments until he could feel the soft, tingling hum of a wireless network singing in the back of his subconscious. Once he found one without any sort of protection or firewall – _when would families learn to at least put a password lock on their wifi? _– Tony slipped easily in and searched for the nearest cheap hotel before directing Kitten within easy distance for them to ditch the care and half-drag, half-carry one another towards the place.

Then, it had been a slightly more complicated matter to secure a room. Hotels, even the cheaper ones, had gone on a progressive trend of switching to maintaining their registry and check-in/check-out procedures on computers. Most of the cheaper hotels were run on poorly secured networks, which should have been a relatively easy thing for a technomancer of Tony's skill to hack. However, he was tired, his head throbbing from even what should have been a minute effort to slip through the laughable security protocol. He licked his lips and buckled down, slamming into the network and sorting through the registry to locate an open room. Tony smiled as he worked, unable to resist in his sleep deprived haze, as he backlogged a supposed check-in time for a Mr. Shadow Moon at around 10:00AM that morning to room 137. He frowned and elected to the reservation for a few days time, just to give them time to make a plan.

The two strangefellows shouldered one another's weight once more as they trudged through a rear entrance. The hotel had a cheesy sort of feel to a man well accustomed to the high life, a pompous insinuation that it was somehow more luxurious and exclusive than it truly was. The hotel had that odd, cookie-cutter color scheme of creamy gold walls, white trim, and red accents. The floor was carpeted in lush, burgundy, marked by several, ancient stains ground into the carpet. Every twenty or thirty feet, there stood a silk palm plant in a plastic urn, the leaves curiously fussy in their arrangement considering the liberal coating of dust upon each bit of green aside from the marks of fingerprints. Yet, after so long in the dark, in that cramped little cell, this place looked like a palace to Tony.

When they reached the door, Tony panicked for but a moment, worrying that, perhaps, this might be one of those few, lingering hotels that had not yet switched from physical keys to electronic key cards. He breathed a sigh of relief, then, to spy the card reader on the door, one, last obstacle before the merciful rest and seeming security of the room. He licked his lips and focused, but the inventor was tired, so very tired. His head ached from the effort, as though split in two by the sheer force of his efforts. The electronic code slipped through his grasp no matter how he tried until, finally, it caught. The small, indicator light on the card reader turned to green and the lock sprang with a clunky sort of sound. Tony's heart leapt at the success, and he threw the door open before it could relock once more.

Kitten smirked slightly from where she stood, leaning heavily against the wall. "Neat trick."

Tony said nothing in response as they grit their teeth and dragged one another into the room. As it turned out, room 137 was a small, two bed suite. The hotel's charitably titled "interior designer" had carried the gold and red theme into the room with the same carpet and wall color. Neither Tony nor Kitten noticed as they collapsed into the near bed along with the weighty battery from the airport. They were asleep within seconds of hitting the downy comforter.

xxxx

Perhaps three hours into flight time, Jarvis spoke serenely, "Colonel Rhodes? I am afraid to inform you that the vehicle in question has been located."

Rhodes started in the suit, as much as his limited range of motion coupled with the cramped confines of the metal exoskeleton would allow; however, he collected himself enough to rationally order, "Tell me more."

"The vehicle was discovered by a patrolman approximately twenty three minutes ago. It was recovered without any further theft of the contents. There were no witnesses, and current radio communication indicates that the officers involved in the recovery believe this to be a matter of joyriding."

"And Tony?" the colonel pressed.

Jarvis paused slightly, a calculated measure of the precise amount of milliseconds derived by carefully crafted algorithms to suggest concern and worrying thought. "There was no trace of Mr. Stark."

Rhodes's heart fell.

xxxx

Tony woke some indeterminate amount of time after their arrival at the hotel. Kitten slept beside him, curled up like her namesake on her side, blocking the view of the clock, and, without windows, there was no way for Tony to gauge how much time had passed as they slept. It could have been moments, or hours, but certainly not days granted the fact that the electromagnet still seemed to be working on the same car battery from the parking deck.

He turned to his side to Kitten, and his heart trembled in his chest for a moment. She was so still, so terribly still, that Tony started to worry perhaps that she had died beside him sometime in the night, his only ally torn so cruelly from him after finding freedom. Tony swallowed, his mind still murky and hazed with exhaustion despite the sleep and unable to so easily throw off the paranoid sensation. It was silly, really, after all that, to think she'd just roll over and die, but he could not help but think that.

He rolled away from her awkwardly, carefully cradling the cables against his chest to keep them from pulling uncomfortably from the motion. Tony closed his eyes, still exhausted from… well… everything. Yet, despite the warmth of the blankets and the plush bed beneath him, sleep eluded him. Something niggled at the back of his mind, something dark and foreboding. He snuggled deeper into the blankets, attempting to shrug off the sensation, but it remained.

Tony turned over once more, until he faced Kitten's back. What had she said about burning herself out? Her words rolled about in his mind, uncomfortably playing again and again, but he could not remember. What if she had burnt herself out, whittled her life away to save his? And, then, what? This life was hers, not his. He had no bearing in this existence, no comprehension of how survive on the lamb in a country that may or may not welcome the presence of Tony Stark any more. He had faced the impossible countless times but never anything like this. The entire country knew his face, for chrissakes – how on Earth was he supposed to even dare to dream of blending in and hiding in a world with his name on the tip of so many tongues? Yet, Kitten had done it somehow, survived without notice, and he knew, if he were to do the same, he needed her experience, her knowledge of this world of the shadows.

"_Without her, I'm alone."_

The thought bubbled up in the back of his mind from nowhere, but he could not deny it. Rhodes would not see him, and Tony hardly blamed him. Rhodey probably hated Tony. And Pepper? She had turned her back on him, spurning him. He had no one else in the world really, no one except Kitten now.

His chest tightened sharply, and he choked back a stifled laugh. It was silly, really. Downright idiotic. If Kitten _had _died beside him some time in the night, Tony figured he would surely be the first to know. Right? Tony grinned a macabre, toothy and twisted smirk in the darkness, one which he could only feel and no one would ever see, laughing in silent, coughed chuckles as the hysteria swept over him. Of course he would know? His mind raced and reeled as his logical side struggled vainly to propose how ludicrous a thought it was. Tony crushed his eyes shut for a long, still moment, as though by sheer force of will he could purge the blind panic from his mind.

In the end, his hand moved on its very own, snaking out to touch the mage ever so gently upon her shoulder. His fingers found bony ribs and scapula there, sharp and angular from so long in the Obadiah's clutches. Yet, there was something else there, the warmth imparted of a living, human body, along with the subtle motion of the slow, even respiration of deep slumber. She did not stir, but Tony somehow knew, instinctively, that the shadowrunner would not.

The simple knowledge alone lulled Tony enough to sleep himself so long as his hand remained on her shoulder.

xxxx

It was difficult for Rhodes to survey the abandoned car. The authorities balked at first at his insistence to be the first to process the evidence left at the scene. Tony might have insisted upon barging in, but Rhodes was a man of authority and loyalty to the law. He finally persuaded the clearly unseasoned officers into letting him have a quick look after doling out some swift autographs as Iron Man and posing for a few photos. He refused to sign as Tony, no matter how the officers argued otherwise, finding it somehow appalling to pretend to be his friend to get into the cops' good graces.

The car was a mid model sedan, rather innocuous in nature. Rhodes felt himself smirk in the suit to at least know that Tony had been sensible enough not to steal a Ferrari or other sports car. Blood stained the driver's seat and a few places along the console, but not enough to suggest a mortal wound, while discarded clothes littered the backseat. Rhodes furrowed his brow at the sight but continued to paw through the vehicle until his search yielded nothing of further interest.

Rhodes scowled beneath the helm, thankful that the police and the curious who had gathered just a dozen or so meters away could no spy his desperation beneath the mask of the Iron Man. He had come so far, so very far. Tony had to be close now, so close that Rhodes could almost hear the jokes and taste the beers they would swap when this was all over. Yet Tony had left no other clues for him, no small breadcrumb for him to follow.

"Sir? I regret to inform you that we are currently operating on auxiliary power. Any further delay in return may result in catastrophic power failure in flight," Jarvis intoned flatly in the helm.

The colonel pressed his lips together, vowing to himself to be back before rocketing into the sky.

xxxx

Movement stirred Tony from his sleep with a jerk. Kitten. She groaned as she stretched in the bed and slowly sat up. His hand slipped down the length of her back as she moved away from the contact and stood, working her joints as she moved. Kitten murmured something that sounded acutely profane before she stumbled from the bed and strode to the bathroom, peeling away the stolen clothes as she did. A moment later, the sound of running water from the shower met his ears and swallowed the sounds of her motion.

Tony sat up slowly, reluctantly. His body felt stiff and worn, his muscles protesting the motion as he massaged his neck. The clock by the television read 6:53, but Tony did not know if it was night or morning, or even the day. Judging by the growling of his stomach and the stiffness to his body, a day could have easily passed.

A tightness formed in Tony's chest, a strange pressing knot of tension. He tried to ignore it by picking up the remote for the television and flipping it on. The news blared in Tony's face instrusively, but he hardly had the heart to watch it aside from noticing that it was night from the "Prime Time" logo floating alongside the anchor's head. He clicked through the channels but nothing caught his attention for long enough to focus on it until the news came back around. Tony turned off the tv and returned the remote to its place on the bedside table, wondering what he had ever found so interesting about it as he unsuccessfully attempted to swallow whatever it was that felt so discomforting in him.

He shifted uneasily on the bed, his foot twitching with nervous energy. The inventor rose and circled the room before sitting down once more and running his fingers through his hair on the side of his scalp away from the surgical ports. Tony glanced at the clock. 7:01 Less than ten minutes had passed without her, and, already, he felt like he was suffocating. His chest heaved in great, unsatisfying inhalations. He paced in his circle a few more times before realizing that his circle had shifted and changed, expanding closer towards the bathroom until his nerves had settled slightly and he stood just outside the bathroom.

It was stupid, maybe just as stupid as thinking she had died in the middle of the night, but he didn't want to be alone. In that other place, being alone meant being at Obadiah's mercy, while being together they had been resilient and strong. Together, they had defied Obadiah and everyone that had stood in their way. It felt wrong to be left alone too long by her, even if she was just in the other room.

Christ, when had he ever been so utterly dependent on another person before in his life?

Tony swallowed his pride, stepped into the bathroom and sat on the toilet seat without even lifting his gaze to look at Kitten as she showered and scrubbed herself, careful to avoid wetting the incision sites. He let out a shuddering breath of relief and stared intently at the floor, just listening to her and feeling somewhat better to be in the same room. The runner did not comment if she noticed him sitting there, feeling the chemical bath of illogical fear ebb and fade from his bloodstream.

Finally, Tony could not stand the silence any longer and broke it. "We forgot the book."

"We'll get a new one. Besides, _somebody _decided to rip that one in half."

He smiled softly, almost pathetically. "Pity. It's a good book."

She did not answer; instead, Kitten finished washing, cut off the water, reached out and pawed about for a towel. Without even raising his gaze, Tony took a towel from the rack and handed it to her. After so long with the morning showers and changing in front of one another, Kitten hardly seemed to care that he sat there, yet Tony did not look at her. He did not even look up as she wrapped the towel about herself and stepped from the shower.

"You should get washed while you can," Kitten stated flatly as she scrubbed at her face with a washcloth. "We should have checked out of here a long time ago."

"And then what?"

Kitten shrugged her narrow shoulders. "Take it as it comes."

"What about the files?" Tony pressed. "We've got to take those to the authorities."

Kitten frowned slightly, her expression somewhat inscrutable. "It's too risky right now."

"People have to know what happened there, what they're still doing there," the inventor argued. "We can't just _let _Obi get away with it."

"And we won't," Kitten assured him sternly, fixing a level gaze upon him as she plaited her hair into a neat braid. "I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly keen on painting a big fucking target on myself right now."

Tony nodded slowly. "Ok. So, what do you propose?"

"Lay low. Get our strength back. Maybe do some work," the girl suggested with another quick, noncommittal shrug.

"You mean run?"

"No. I meant gardening and whitewashing fences like Huck Finn," she teased sarcastically before sobering with a long, tired sigh. "Look, we need cash. Lots of it if we're going to pay someone off to take this shit out of our heads and keep quiet about it. Not like you can even get a job off the books without someone recognizes you. Running the shadows is the only option."

"But, what if there was an easier way? A safer way?"

Kitten folded her arms across her chest. "I'm listening."

xxxx

In the end, it was so very simple, so very safe. Kitten found an ATM, and Tony did the rest. He easily dipped his mind into the surveillance system and found the data for the video. It was only a small thing, then, to loop a bit of video over and over again displaying only empty, barren street in front of the ATM. No one need know that anyone visited that ATM the night before. Once that was done, Kitten and he shambled to the ATM, close enough for him to work more comfortably.

Kitten stood at his side, keeping watch as he worked. It felt somewhat comforting to know the mage was there, at his side. She had his back, and it eased him.

He licked his lips as he worked, drifting through the node of the ATM and accessing the appropriate files before the ATM started to spit out money. Tony reconfigured the access log a bit as he stuffed bill after bill into the pockets of his sweatshirt. It felt wrong. After all, it was theft. Yet, Tony knew, as well as anyone else, that this was a tiny amount of money compared to what the bank held. Besides, his subtle changes to the access log would blame computer malfunction in the middle of the night that caused the machine to just spew money. No one would be to blame, and the money was insured in the event of such an error. Yet, it still felt wrong.

He waved a handful of hundreds in front of Kitten and grinned. "Told you I had an easier, safer way."

From the ATM, it was a short walk to the nearest Burger King, with Kitten balking every step of the way. He didn't care as he dragged her alongside him. His stomach growled in hunger every step of the way, his need coalescing into a singular arrow of desire, piqued by air heavily laden with the cloying scent of fried foods and a hot grill. He had wanted nothing more than a cheeseburger his first day back on American soil after Afghanistan – a _real_ cheeseburger and not the horrid excuses for cheeseburgers harking from the military and hospital swill charitably called food that he had been subjected to after his rescue. Now, was no different. It was his first day, his first real day free.

Kitten held her tongue as he ordered a few burgers, fries and a coke for him and a plain tea for her; she waited until they sat upon the curb just a few blocks down. "It's a bad idea."

"I don't care," Tony sang, unwrapping his treasure.

"You'll be sorry," the runner chirped, turning her head away.

Tony shrugged her warnings off and tucked into the food, relishing the veritable explosion of taste after so long with nothing but the bland, boring oatmeal and protein sludge. The taste tickled his palette, better than any fine wine or overly priced gourmet dining. He licked his lips in delight, smiling nearly deliriously at the sensation.

That was, of course, until his stomach rebelled and brought the lone cheeseburger back up in a violent, ghastly display. Kitten sat back, chuckling as he wretched, but not in a mean way. It was the sound of a faint mix of amusement and empathy one might hear from a friend holding back their hair as they threw up from night of rather glorious drinking.

"Told you it was a bad idea." Kitten shook her head. "You've been near starved. Your body can't handle food like that."

Tony wiped his lips with a napkin from the paper fast food bag and gave a tiny shrug. "Still worth it."

She handed him her tea. He sipped it gratefully, as the tea warmed and settled his stomach. Kitten perched on the edge of the curb, as a bird ready to take flight, shifting her weight uneasily as her eyes constantly scanned the road. Her paranoia was a great, cumbersome thing over them, yet Tony could not begrudge her when it was that very paranoia that had kept her safe for so many years before her lust for vengeance blinded her to the danger closing in.

Tony sipped the tea slowly and resolved to trust, to listen.

xxxx

A day passed, and, then another went slowly by without any further news or leads. Rhodes and Agent Fury's mean searched Seattle, scouring the streets for days, without finding anything. Not a trace. It was as if Tony and Kitten had slipped right off the face of the Earth. Pepper worried constantly, her face growing drawn, pale, and saddened as the days went on, yet Rhodes took heart. Word on the street was that Stark Industries, MCT, _and _Ares were still searching for Tony Stark and Kitten. It meant that Tony was still out there, somewhere beyond Obadiah's reach, somewhere safe perhaps. It meant that there was still time to find Tony before anyone else did.

Rhodes had found Tony once in the desert, despite all odds; he would find him again.

xxxx

A day blurred by slowly, painfully, and then another. Tony followed Kitten's common sense when it came to life on the streets and on the run, learning as they went. Kitten taught him, showed him life in the shadows, and kept her ear to the ground for a line on a doctor who would safely remove the ports and lines under the table. For his part, Tony took care of the money needs and places to stay. They worked together, for as strange as it may have seemed.

However, by the end of the second day, Tony felt a twinge in his chest. The electromagnet was losing strength, slowly, as the battery drained. His chest plate had never been designed for running off a car battery for any extended period of time, and, as such, it was only a matter of time before the battery failed him. Tony resolved to hide it from Kitten, not to worry her when it was not entirely necessary. On the evening of the second night, as they sat and sipped soup, a barb slipped in Tony's chest, and he flinched, clenching his teeth as he did. When he looked up, Kitten stared intently at him, concern written on her every feature. He waved off her concern.

"What is it?"

Tony shook his head. "It's nothing."

"Didn't look like nothing to me," she snapped.

For a moment, Tony said nothing; then, he conceded and shrugged. "Battery's gone bad." Tony gave a mirthless chuckle. "At least I won't have to carry the damn thing around anymore."

Kitten did not seem to find the humor in it. "How long before it's drained completely?"

"Maybe a couple of hours."

Kitten stood and extended a hand to help him up. "C'mon."

"Where are we going?"

"Battery shopping."

They trudged together, side by side, to the nearest WalMart. A greeter made a half-hearted attempt say hello, but the pair just kept moving. Tony grit his teeth as it became more and more difficult to move, yet Kitten valiantly dug in and took up more of his weight as they moved to the very back of the store, to the automotive section, each of them grabbing a few clothing items as they moved. Together, they ambled the long aisles until they came to the car batteries. Tony slumped heavily against Kitten, his heart throbbing and straining with effort as she surveyed the selection curiously. The battery was heavy, and his muscles had wasted severely during their captivity.

Finally, the girl hissed in Tony's ear, "Which one?"

He smirked. "_Any _one. It'll work." He leveled a stern gaze at Kitten, or, at least, as stern of a gaze as Tony could muster, and stated firmly, "Trust me."

She nodded and grabbed the nearest, cheapest battery, which was no small effort granted the weight of the draining battery shared between them. They moved to the register and swiftly paid, in cash. Tony kept his head hung, avoiding looking anyone in the eye for fear that someone might recognize him. Kitten quickly ferried him to the outdoor section and into the privacy of a sample tent.

"Talk me through this again?" Kitten pressed as she gutted the box for the new battery.

Tony did, and, within moments, the new battery was hooked up and running the electromagnet in his chest. Kitten looked at him anxiously; there was no way for her to know outwardly if the magnet worked. He smiled weakly in thanks.

Kitten pursed her pale lips together. "Good. Let's get out of here."

Tony nodded. This place felt too public, too exposed. WalMarts, like so many other major retailers, were riddled with security cameras and crowded with people. At any moment, someone might recognize him, despite the heavy beard growth across his face and how utterly gaunt he had become over however long it was that Obadiah held them. Admittedly, it wasn't likely, but Tony Stark had never been a man to take anything but highly calculated chances. Tony preferred not to risk that, especially not considering how easy it had been to secure the battery.

Together, they walked back to the front of the store; however, it did not escape Tony's notice that a few of the other shoppers watched them pass. Tony tensed, gripping Kitten tighter. The shadowrunner scowled but said nothing. She had seen them as well, yet they were too close to the door now to do anything save keep moving. Foxes. Security for someone, perhaps the store or perhaps Obadiah, in plain clothes, sent out into the world to pretend to shop while surreptitiously keeping an eye on the other shoppers at all times.

As such, it was no great surprise then, when a stranger latched his hand upon Kitten's upper arm and a voice sneered from behind. "Would you mind coming with me, ma'am?"

Heat rolled off Kitten in a sudden, baking wave; Tony shook his head. "Don't."

"Now, ma'am," the fox insisted, his tone dark and warning.

"Don't do it, Kitten," Tony ordered under his breath.

She moved without thought, without fear or hesitation, and something about that frightened Tony. Yet she did not let loose, not with the vengeful magic the inventor expected of his odd companion. Instead, the shadowrunner flung their bags of clothes and the empty battery box up and into the face of the nameless fox. It was a smart move. The abrupt flurry of things took the fox off guard, and he loosed his grip on the girl's arm. Kitten bolted, tugging Tony along in her wake as she moved.

"Shit!" Stark swore loudly as they moved, faster than his legs could rightly keep up as they slammed out of the store and ran for the nearest tree line before collapsing in an exhausted, panting heap atop one another.

They were lucky, Tony knew with a sobering clarity as he struggled to catch his breath. The outdoor section and the autoparts were situated in the far reaches of a rather sizeable store. The fox could have gotten to them there, but, instead, they'd been close enough to the door to just run without a fight. It could have been so much worse. It could have been Obadiah with one of his security teams, but, instead, it was just a common, plain clothes security officer, likely intending to stop because he thought their brief interlude in the tent was far more risqué than it truly was.

"We can't do that again," Tony heaved.

Kitten shook her head. "You're going to need another battery. And then another. If we don't do this, you'll be dead."

"Don't you think I know that?" Tony bickered sourly. "New batteries are just a temporary solution. We need a permanent one."

"What are you suggesting?"

The inventor sat up and sighed. "I've got an idea, but I don't think you're going to like it."

**xxxx**

**Author's Notes: **Ah yes, it has been a while, but school is finally over for the summer, so I can begin to wrap up a lot of stories. After watching the new movie (*loved it), I kind of figured this was a good place to start. Yes, we're almost to the end. It's been a while, I know, and this was not nearly as action paced as anyone reading (*or writing!) **Dumpshock** knows, but we're winding down to a gripping conclusion. I needed something light and fluffyish between all my stories as a nice warm-up into hardcore writing again.

Next chapter, cameo ahoy and maybe some reunions perhaps?


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